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DAVID DARE

DISSOLVING DOUBTS

By Earle Albert Rowell.

INDEX

CHAPTER PAGE

1. The Scoffer Scoffs - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1

2. Challenge to a Prophecy Contest - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 6

3. The Test Begins - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10

4. How to Disprove the Bible - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 12

5. Egypt Confounds the Unbeliever - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 15

6. The Daring of Daniel - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 19

7. Every Jew a Miracle - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 22

8. Sceptics Compelled to Witness for the Bible - - - - - - - - - 25

9. Infidel Ruler Tries to Break Prophecy - - - - - - - - - - - - 31

10. Christ — the Heart of Prophecy and History - - - - - - - - 33

11. Infidels Testify for Christ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 39

12. Confessions of Leading Modern Infidels - - - - - - - - - - - 45

13. Converted Sceptics - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 48

14. What Has the Sceptic to Offer - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 52

15. What Christianity Has to Offer; Conversion of the Emersons - - 55

FOREWORD

Earle Albert Rowell, to whom we are indebted for this story of David Dare and his

experiences in Bible research, is also author of “The Bible in the Critics’ Den,” “Letters

From a Converted Infidel to His Agnostic Father,” and “Battling the Wolves of Society.”

He was reared in an infidel home and is himself a converted infidel. For a number of years

he lectured on the Pacific Coast of the United States, following the plan of going into a city,

advertising his meeting, inviting all classes of unbelievers to attend and to interrupt him with

questions at any time during the lecture. These he promised to answer. The story of David

Dare is a composite of these experiences and is based on actual facts.

Publishers.

2

1. THE SCOFFER SCOFFS

GEORGE EMERSON TURNED to his father and pointed an emphatic finger at an

advertisement he had just read: Amazement was in his voice: “Read that, Dad.”

The elder Emerson took the paper and read aloud, his tone growing more amusedly

cynical as he followed the item:

“INFIDELITY CHALLENGED AND REFUTED.

“An unusual lecture by David Dare, a converted infidel. All sceptics, scoffers,

unbelievers, infidels — all classes of doubters — are especially invited to hear this important

address. They may interrupt the speaker at any time during his lecture with questions or with

denials of his statements. If you are a free-thinker, an agnostic, a heretic, or an atheist,

COME! THIS MEETING IS ESPECIALLY FOR YOU.”

The father laid the paper down, contempt in his manner. “This fellow certainly takes

in a lot of territory.”

“Well, he includes you, Dad! Here is your opportunity,” said George gleefully. “You

are always asking Christians, and particularly ministers, all kinds of hard questions that they

can’t answer. Let’s go and hear this man. I have some questions I’d like to ask him, too.”

George’s questions, however, were hazy, and born of the desire to see his father in

action.

“It isn’t likely he’d welcome my questions, George,” smiled the father confidently,

with slight emphasis on “my.”

“But the invitation is especially to sceptics, who are urged to come with their

questions,” argued the son eagerly.

“Yes, I know — a very fine gesture it is, too,” admitted Henry Emerson.

“You don’t believe he means it? You think it a trick to get a crowd?”

“Something like that. I never heard of such a meeting. If he lives up to the terms of

his advertisement, the meeting will run away with him.” ”Let’s go and see for ourselves,”

urged George. “You might be surprised.”

“Of course we’ll go,” assented his father, “since you are so anxious. No doubt the

place will be packed.”

Mr. Emerson himself was in reality eager to attend, but hid his longing under an

apparently reluctant consent to accompany his son.

George was wide-awake, questioning young man of twenty who had been reared in an

atmosphere of religious doubt. His father was a large, rather dogmatic man of average

education, with a keen mind turned slightly cynical.

While they were discussing the strange announcement, Mrs. Emerson and her

daughter, Lucile, entered.

“Another religious argument,” Lucile laughed, her quick eye taking in the slightly

belligerent attitude of her father.

“Wrong guess, sis,” George assured her. “Just the prelude to one that promises to be

a wholesale affair.”

“A wholesale religious argument!” exclaimed Lucile in puzzled amazement. “What

in the world do you mean?”

“Fellow here in the paper, a converted infidel, advertises to take on all comers — at

the same time,” explained George, with twinkling eyes.

Lucile read the advertisement with increasing astonishment to the end.

3

“Hm-m! A large order. He can’t do it! Must be a religious mountebank,” she

decided.

“No, for the meetings are sponsored by substantial, conservative citizens whose

names are appended farther on — see,” said George, pointing them out.

Lucile cast a roguish eye at her father, but addressed her brother. “I see dad is going

to be as happy as any well-trained iconoclast could possibly be.”

“It’s tonight. Will you go?” George spoke eagerly, as he drew his sister to one side.

“Is dad going?”

“Yes.”

“Then try to keep me away. I see where dad is riding for a fall!”

“Do you think so?” exclaimed George.

“Do I think so?” she mimicked. “I am sure of it. Do you think any man would dare to

insert such an advertisement, sponsored by these people, unless he knew his — his —”

“Bible,” George hastened to add, as they dashed off to get ready.

Though the Emerson family arrived fifteen minutes early it was with difficulty they

found seats in the large auditorium.

“Standing room only, pretty soon,” whispered George to Lucile.

“I am curious to see how they are going to conduct such a strange meeting as this,”

remarked Mr. Emerson, settling himself comfortably.

“We won’t have long to wait — there they start for the platform now,” indicated

Lucile. “I’m just thrilling with excitement.”

“Why,” exclaimed Mr. Emerson in surprise, “Dr. Morely is chairman of the meeting.

David Dare must have an important message to induce the city’s most prominent physician to

introduce him.”

Just then Mr. Dare, a man past thirty and above average height, walked briskly but

with utter lack of self-consciousness to his place beside Dr. Morely, who engaged him in

conversation while the crowd continued to gather.

The chairman called the meeting to order. “A series of lectures on “Infidelity

Challenged and Refuted’ will be given here every Sunday afternoon for the next few weeks,”

began Dr. Morely crisply. “This above all others is an age of doubt. The speaker, Mr. Dare,

was reared in an infidel home. He was once an ardent sceptic. He has invited all classes of

doubters here, and freely offers them opportunity to question his statements, even to the

extent of interrupting him to propound their questions or denials. This is a serious attempt to

aid sceptics in their search for the truth about the Bible. Mr. Dare will now tell you what he

proposes to do.”

An electric hush of expectancy swept the large audience as David Dare walked in

calm dignity to the front. He stood silent for a few moments, scanning the sea of faces with

his candid eyes.

“You are all here under a misapprehension of what I plan to do,” he began.

“I knew it, I knew it,” muttered Mr. Emerson, as low exclamations of amazement

swept the audience.

“Aha!” exclaimed Lucile in an undertone, while George sat speechless.

“I am not here to challenge anyone. I do not challenge infidelity or infidels,” he went

on calmly. The audience stirred restlessly.

“Nor do I expect to refute infidels or infidelity.” Dare’s clear voice took on firmer

tones. It could be heard above the belligerent murmurings that arose everywhere.

“This is a huge joke,” snorted the elder Emerson disgustedly. “We are wasting out

time here. Suppose we go.” He half arose.

“Nevertheless, infidels and infidelity will be challenged. Infidelity and infidels will

be refuted,” David Dare promised in a clear, ringing voice.

4

Those who had arisen sat down abruptly. “This sounds interesting,” said Emerson.

“Guess I’ll stay.”

The large audience was silent again, leaning eagerly forward to miss nothing. David

Dare smiled in understanding of their attitude, sensing fully the shocked amazement, the

amused contempt. The jeering mockery changed now to interested expectancy. Stepping

calmly to the edge of the platform, he spoke quietly, but in an earnest, impressive manner:

“Yes, doubters will be challenged and scepticism refuted, but not by me. The scoffers

of today, the unbelievers in this very audience, were challenged and refuted many hundreds

of years ago by One infinitely wiser than I.”

“It will be my part to set before you certain facts. You will be given an opportunity to

admit them or deny them if you can. Since every opportunity is granted to question the

statements made, since you are freely invited and even urged to interrupt the speaker at any

time with inquiries or denials, your silence will be taken as assent to his statements. Is that

not fair?”

“Yes, yes, Go on,” responded a number in the audience.

“Your questions and denials must necessarily be confined to the subjects under

consideration. These lectures are built up in logical sequence, and if you will attend the

entire series, many questions that may be suggested will probably be taken up later.

“I shall assume that we are all doubters, myself included. But we are honest

explorers, adventurers together, seeking to learn the truth about this strange, dominating,

disturbing Book that has been put into our hands — the Bible. I am merely your captain on

this voyage of discovery.

“And mark this: I shall use no material we are not all agreed upon. We will advance

together or not at all. If a statement is not accepted by everybody, it will be discarded

immediately. We will progress as a unit.

“And further: I warn you that I expect to proceed step by step from infidelity to

Christianity. You are invited to find flaws in this process. I am as interested to find them as

you are. I am fully as eager to get help from you as to aid you. This is far too serious a

matter for me to dare risk remaining in error. I earnestly invite your united help. Look for

flaws in my reasoning and fearlessly point them out. If you fail to find any, I assume that you

will as fearlessly accept the inevitable conclusion.” Mr. Dare paused a moment for the

audience to grasp his plan.

“An amazingly daring undertaking,” exclaimed one.

“Absurd, impossible,” sneered another.

“Fair, indeed, providing he lives up to his promise,” remarked Mr. Emerson.

His sentiment was evidently shared by the majority present. Few, however, were

convinced that the man who stood before them really meant what he said.

“All right, we are with you so far. Let’s go,” shouted a stentorian voice from the rear.

David Dare picked up a small, flexible leather book and held it toward the audience in

his right hand. “Here is a book called the Bible. Unique claims are made for it. Its warm

friends go so far as to maintain that it is the Word of God. Indeed, millions have cheerfully

suffered horrible deaths rather than deny this or disregard its teachings. And other millions

stand ready this minute to follow their example.

“Now, all of us here are doubters; but a Book for which millions died and are still

ready to die certainly ought to be examined. We are willing to investigate. Is this Book open

to questioning? Does it invite scrutiny?

“How are we to test a book for which such high claims are made? Where can we best

begin? What part is most vulnerable? Does it boast qualities that make it different from any

other book in the world?

5

“Suppose we turn to the Book itself and see. Here I read, ‘Prove all things; hold fast

that which is good.’ 1 Thessalonians 5:21. Does anyone here disagree with that?”

Mr. Dare paused for reply. There was none.

“Good; we are together so far. ‘Come now, and let us reason together, saith the

Lord.’ Isaiah 1:18. Even the most sceptical mind will admit the fairness of this invitation.

Note that the reasoning is together. But God gives His reasons first so that we may ‘prove’

them. Does anyone here find fault with that?”

Again Mr. Dare paused for a reply, but no one ventured.

“How are we to assay this volume? Have its writers given us any means by which to

verify its statements? Do they especially invite or urge us to try any particular part? Does

any portion claim to be impregnable?

“Naturally, if there is any section for which special claims are made, we shall

investigate them. We are not now concerned with the statement that it is all the Word of

God. We must take some part that we can put into the crucible for the acid test.

“If we, as Peter claims he did, could witness Christ’s great glory, actually hear the

voice of God speaking to His Son Jesus, we would consider we had very convincing

evidence. However, Peter, telling of this experience (in his second epistle, chapter 1:16-21),

adds that there is evidence far more certain than even the audible demonstration of the

presence of God. ‘We have also a more sure word of prophecy.’ And he concludes by

saying, ‘Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as

they were moved by the Holy Ghost.’ “

Mr. Emerson rose quickly, towering to six feet of impressive stature. A number in the

audience, evidently interested in Dare’s talk, shouted, “Sit down, sit down; put him out.”

But a rising chorus of voices shouted encouragement: “Go on, speak up, friend.”

They were evidently glad that a test of the speaker’s invitation to interrupt was to be made so

soon.

David Dare stopped immediately and turned smilingly to the conspicuous figure

awaiting recognition. He raised his hand. An expectant silence followed.

“All I ask,” he said calmly, “is that you give your name and make your statement brief

and to the point. This applies to all who may speak hereafter. Now I shall be glad to hear

you, sir.”

All eyes turned to Mr. Emerson. He seemed to feel his importance as champion of the

sceptics’ cause and appeared to stretch up an inch taller. In his manner was a serious dignity.

Lucile leaned over and whispered to George, “Dad is running true to form.” George

smiled assent and put his finger to his lips.

“My name is Emerson. My statement will be brief and on the subject. But I doubt

that you will be glad to hear me. However, you invited it. I am amazed that a man of your

intelligence attempts to palm off on this audience such antiquated and exploded stuff as

prophecy. There is no real prophecy. The facts are always twisted to fit the prediction. And

if there is real accord, it is purely accidental. Finally, prophecy was usually written after the

event and made to fit into it. Anyone can write that kind of prophecy.

“I could easily now write a prophecy of Lindburg’s flight across the Atlantic, date it

A.D. 1000, and credit it to some famous scientist of that time. Then, fifteen hundred years

from now, when that prediction, presumably written nine hundred years before the event it

foretells, is found, a fine case for accurate prophecy could be made out for that scientist.”

“That’s right, that’s right,” commented several voices as Mr. Emerson sat down. “A

real poser. Sounds unanswerable.”

All eyes now turned back to David Dare, who stood tranquilly by the stand, ready to

answer.

6

2. CHALLENGE TO A PROPHECY CONTEST

IF DAVID DARE sensed the antagonism of the audience, he gave no evidence of it.

He spoke calmly, but with the emphasis of sincere conviction.

“Prophecy, you say, is either vague or tricky or just a shrewd guess. I grant you it is

sometimes hard to understand, and I remember when I found it distressingly vague.

But why do you apply to the Bible a method of investigation that you would be

ashamed to use with any other book? When you open a geometry text for the first time, and

glance at the section on solids, in your perplexity and despair you might defend your lack of

understanding by claiming geometry to be vague. Yet it is the most crystal clear of all

sciences in the world.”

Mr. Emerson rose again. Mr. Dare paused and motioned for him to speak.

“Do you mean to imply that prophecy is as rigidly demonstrable as geometry?” he

asked incredulously.

“Yes, I mean just that.”

“You are making things unnecessarily hard for yourself. No one would think of

setting such a task for you.” Mr. Emerson’s tone hinted jubilation combined with sympathy.

“It is not a task but a pleasure,” responded the lecturer, smiling. “Let us return to

geometry. If you start with the simple problems at the beginning, you will later understand

perfectly what you now confidently proclaim to be obscure.

“So it is with prophecy. Some prophecies naturally precede others. There are some

predictions in the Book of Revelation that would be impossible to understand without Daniel.

“If prophecy is so easy to disprove, how is it that among all the thousands of books

written by infidels there is not one in all the world devoted to showing specifically how Bible

prophecies have failed? If these predictions could be so easily proved to be the result of a

clever or lucky guess, or if the fulfillment be merely the twisting of facts to fit the prediction,

or if the prophecy were written after the events took place and made to fit into them, how is it

that facile sceptics, who are so alert for arguments against the Bible, universally overlooked

the one demonstrable method of proving the Bible to be false?

“Why has not some Tom Paine, some Robert Ingersoll, or some Mr. Emerson, for that

matter, shown how utterly absurd, false, and contrary to fact are the prophecies of Moses

concerning the Jews, of Isaiah about Babylon, of Ezekiel telling of the fate of Tyre and

Sidon, of Jeremiah concerning Egypt and Palestine, of Daniel, with his amazing predictions

about Rome and the nations into which Rome was to be divided, of Jesus concerning the

growth of His kingdom and the spread of this very Bible to every nation, kindred, tongue, and

people?”

Mr. Emerson shot up eagerly. David Dare smiled his welcome. Lucile turned

twinkling eyes to her brother.

“Anyway, the man’s a good sport,” she whispered.

“He seems to welcome these interruptions,” admitted George.

“No one has replied to Bible predictions,” said Emerson, in a strong, clear voice, “for

the same reason that no one has replied to the Delphic oracle prognostications — it’s not

worth the trouble. Herodotus relates the story of Croesus consulting the famous Delphic

oracle as to whether he should fight the Persians. He was told that ‘by crossing Halys,

Croesus will destroy a mighty power.’ He did — his own! And when Pyrrhus sought advice

on a similar errand of war, he received this cryptic reply: ‘I declare thee, O Pyrrhus, the

Roman to be able to conquer.’ Thus, no matter which way the battle went, the augury would

7

be true. All prophecy everywhere is like that — amusing, sometimes ingenious, but never

worthy serious attention. But you make great claims for it.”

“Bible prophecies are worthy of consideration because they are as far from Delphic

utterances as midday from midnight,” replied Mr. Dare. “Bible predictions burn all bridges.

If the thing does not happen, no apology can be offered.

“Every other part of the Bible has been criticized in elaborate detail by unbelievers,

but when it comes to prophecy, sceptics the world over content themselves with a wholesale,

jaunty, contemptuous denial, as though it was of no consequence.”

“Will you Christians risk anything on prophecy? What of consequence is at stake to

believers?” asked Mr. Emerson.

“Just this: The Bible bases its whole claim to credence on the accuracy of its

forecasts. Why have unbelievers never made a detailed study of them, so they might expose

the fraud of prophetic chicane to the deserved contempt of the public, if the prophecies are

what you claim?

“You, Mr. Emerson, along with other sceptics, despise prophecy. There were many

such believers in Paul’s day. To them and to you he said: ‘Despise not prophesyings. Prove

all things; hold fast that which is good.’ 1 Thessalonians 5:20, 21. Here you are challenged

above all things to prove prophecy; that is, test it, and if it proves true, hold fast to it.”

“But wherein are prophecies better evidence than miracles?” asked Emerson. “I

thought that Christ used miracles to convince, and that Christians today appealed to these

miracles as the strongest evidence of Bible authenticity.”

“Christ repeatedly appealed to fulfilled prophecy as evidence His contemporaries

might accept,” answered Mr. Dare. “Fulfilled prophecy is especially adapted as a test, for we

are nineteen hundred years from the latest Bible book and thirty-three hundred years from the

first.

“You may look back at the miracles of the Bible through the mists of time and declare

them improbable, if not impossible, but the opposite is true of prophecy. Those beholding

His miracles were convinced by them, while many of the prophecies that were unfulfilled

were apparently opposed to all reason and probability, and might in those days have been

made an excuse for rejecting Christ.

“Obviously, miracles performed twenty-five hundred years ago cannot be seen now,

so they are often flatly denied. A prediction, however, made twenty-five hundred years ago,

and which was contrary to all analogy, and a stumbling block at the time, but which was

recently fulfilled, is evidence even more convincing than a miracle — such a fulfilled

prediction is the greatest of all miracles, and was so admitted by the sceptic Hume.

“Other evidence can be falsified, changed, lost, memory may fail, conflicting

statements may cloud the issue; passion, self-interest, dishonesty, any one of a thousand

things, may impair proofs. But prophecy relates to history, and history is recorded fact.

“How was God, through all the shifting interests of the world, the engrossing

allurements of the new demands of each new generation, the dying interest in that which is

gone, and the eagerness for that which is to come — how was God to give those of us who

live today unimpeachable testimony of events so remote as three thousand years ago? How

was He to satisfy a reasonable demand for proof? And above all, how was God to give

increasing and strengthening proof as we get farther and farther from the event itself?

“God has devised an absolutely new method of proving His Word, one that cannot be

gainsaid, that cannot be counterfeited, that has no duplicate in all the history of the world,

that increases in power with each passing year, that is stronger each tomorrow than it was

yesterday.”

David Dare paused and looked searchingly at his large audience. No one took the

occasion to press in with remarks, so he continued:

8

“This strange method of eternally authenticating His Word compels the ruin of

empires long dead, the mutation of states, the obliteration of nations and civilizations, to

witness to the truth of His Word.

“All the places famous in antiquity — Egypt, Syria, Phoenicia, Arabia, Tyre, Sidon,

Idumea, Palestine, Babylon, Assyria, Nineveh, Judea, Rome and many other countries — are

witnesses that do not forget, do not contradict, and though dead these many centuries, rise to

testify. When put in a jury box they cannot be confused. Some of the oldest of them have

been before the jury thirty-three hundred years; the youngest, two thousand. They are now

on the stand, fresh and potent, bearing their testimony with far greater fullness and accuracy

than at any former time.

“The ages do not detract from, but add to, their testimony. Minute cross examination

serves only to increase the swelling column of evidence. No counterproof has yet been

attempted.”

Mr. Emerson arose. All eyes turned his way. Mr. Dare waited for him to speak.

“Suppose we did disprove many of the Bible prophecies, what would we accomplish

by such disproof?” he asked.

“The Bible stakes everything on its ability to foretell the future. If the Bible claim to

make genuine predictions is true, it is a miracle of foresight far beyond the ability of human

sagacity to discern or to calculate, and is the highest evidence of the supernatural knowledge

of the prophet.

“God claims to be the only one able to foretell the future. He says in Isaiah 46:9, 10:

‘I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient

times the things that are not yet done.’

“The ability to foretell is the seal of God’s deity, which He claims cannot be

counterfeited. The Bible challenges others everywhere to foretell the future: ‘Who, as I, . . .

shall declare . . . the things that are coming, and that shall come to pass, let them declare.’

Isaiah 44:7.

“But this is by no means all. Such strong claims are not casually made. Have you

sceptics a cause to present? Hear Isaiah 41:21-23: ‘Produce your cause, saith Jehovah; bring

forth your strong reasons.’ Now, what are the strong reasons? Let us read on: ‘Declare unto

us what shall happen: declare ye . . . things to come. Declare the things that are to come

hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods.’ “

“Has your Bible fulfilled these conditions?” asked Mr. Emerson. “I don’t mean in a

vague manner, but in a clear and definite way.”

“ ‘Have I not declared unto thee of old, and showed it?’ asks God in Isaiah 44:8. And

then He says, ‘Ye are My witnesses,’ “ returned David Dare. “You, yes, even you, Mr.

Emerson, and the rest of the sceptics in this audience, are witnesses to the accuracy of

prophecies made many centuries ago.”

Mr. Emerson shot to his feet. “Do you mean that you are going to prove your

prophecy thesis by us?” he asked in great amazement.

“That is exactly what I do mean,” smiled the speaker, evidently enjoying the surprise

of the audience.

“But we don’t believe your Bible; we think its predictions the sheerest kind of

foolishment, and yet you say you are going to prove by us the very thing we don’t believe?”

Mr. Emerson was incredulous.

Lucile leaned over to whisper to her brother, “He has an interesting line, all right; he’s

got dad excited!”

George smiled, “Yes, and dad is not the only one excited. Look around,” he

whispered back.

9

She looked. Every face in the audience was alight with eager curiosity; eyes sparkled

with interest.

“The fact that you are unbelievers, that you are unwilling witnesses, makes your

testimony all the more valuable,” continued Mr. Dare as Mr. Emerson sat down. “God

declared twenty-five hundred years ago that He is going to prove His Word by the very ones

who say they doubt His Word. This is a daring statement. Yet it is by your evidence that

Bible prophecies will be proved.

“While science has solved many strange problems, and seems to be almost

supernatural, it has not brought us one whit nearer to penetrating the future than were the

ancients. Human beings can as easily pluck the stars from the Milky Way as they can wrest

from the future its secrets. We are utterly unable to foresee even dimly the events of

tomorrow. Before us is a black, impenetrable wall of uncertainty. We can guess, we can

hope, but we cannot know.

“But if the future has been read; if centuries ago numerous predictions, so varied and

so minute that they cover well-known nations and extend over thousands of years — if such

predictions have been made so as to preclude all possibility of wresting the facts to fit the

prophecy; if sceptics themselves admit the accuracy of the fulfillment, and can offer no

explanation; and if you here are witnesses to this fulfillment of prophecies made over twentyfive

hundred years ago, how can you doubt that some wisdom other than human foretold the

events that have come to pass

“What shall we say of a large Book filled with predictions of events overspreading all

time and all nations, events utterly disconnected from any facts existing at the time of their

utterance, events totally unlike anything ever known and the reverse of all experience, in all

respects improbable and often seemingly impossible, events entering into the life of the world

in all its phases? A series of hundreds of such events were demonstrably predicted ages

before fulfillment, and not one of them has gone contrary, as might well be the case with so

many predictions. The proof of their fulfillment is now existing in tangible form before your

eyes. What shall we say of such a Book?

“In the verses that I have quoted, God has challenged anyone and everyone on earth to

a prophecy contest, and will abide by the result. God claims to be the only one who can look

into the future and make predictions. He tells us He has done this, and offers these

prophecies as the one great proof of His Godhead.

“Is it a fact that no other book in existence makes such a claim? Can you produce any

other book claiming to contain predictions looking hundreds of years, or even tens of years,

into the future? If you know of any in any language, produce it. God Himself challenges

you.

“Sceptics have gone to great pains and expense to disprove the Bible. I will tell you

two very simple, effective, and final methods of shattering the Bible to atoms: First, just

disprove the prophecies; second, produce some other book containing real prophecies. God

says neither can be done. To do either will blast for ever all confidence in the Bible as the

Word of God. Why have unbelievers never done this? Does anyone here claim that this has

been done? Will anyone here attempt to do it?”

David Dare paused for the reply he felt sure would follow. There was an uneasy stir

among the audience. Mr. Emerson arose and spoke:

“Bring on your prophecies, and we will see what we can do. You have made some

large, not to say preposterous, claims for them. Let us now have your evidence.”

“I am more than pleased to present it,” replied Mr. Dare.

10

3. THE TEST BEGINS

THE APPLAUSE THAT greeted Mr. Emerson’s demand indicated the anxiety of the

audience to hear the evidence. David Dare, Bible in hand, stepped to the edge of the platform

and proceeded with his talk:

“For two thousand years Tyre grew in importance until she was mistress of the sea as

was Babylon of the land. She was the commercial centre of the world. Carthage, the rival of

Rome, was only a colony of Tyre — Tyre, the beautiful, the rich, the learned, into which

flowed the fine gold of Tarshish, the precious stones of Aram, the spirited horses of Armenia,

the beautiful ivories of Damascus, the fine linen of Egypt, the flocks of Arabia, the perfumes

of Sheba, the slaves of Javan.

“In short, Tyre was the New York of Asia. Ships from all nations anchored in her

harbour and their passengers bartered in her streets.

“While Tyre was at the height of her glory and power, while it would seem she must

stand for ever, along came Ezekiel, who prophesied about 590 B. C., and said: ‘They shall

destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her,

and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst

of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God: . . . and they shall lay stones and thy

timber and thy dust in the midst of the water. . . . and I will make thee like the top of a rock:

thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the Lord have

spoken it, saith the Lord God.’ Ezekiel 26:4-14.

“Immediately after the giving of that prophecy, Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre, and

after thirteen years of effort took the city and destroyed it, wreaking fearful vengeance on

buildings and people.”

Here one of the audience jumped to his feet.

“You cannot prove the prophecy was written before Nebuchadnezzar’s time.

According to your own statement, Ezekiel was contemporary with the king.”

“True,” agreed David Dare, “While personally I believe the prediction was made

before Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre, I shall not refer merely to that siege. Though the

prophecy began with the king of Babylon’s siege, its predictions looked more than two

thousand years into the future, as we shall see.

“Observe that while the ruins of the old city remained after Nebuchadnezzar’s time,

the prophecy declared that the timbers and rocks and even the very dust should be cast into

the sea, leaving a bare rock to be used for spreading nets.

“This prediction was not fulfilled by this king of Babylon, and it seemed improbable

it ever would be fulfilled; for if Nebuchadnezzar, in his anger, had taken full vengeance, and

had not thought of this, who was likely to care enough about the ruins of a deserted city to be

so violently destructive? It would be the very frenzy of madness. But meanwhile there stood

the prophetic words, awaiting fulfillment.

“Two and a half centuries passed, and still the ruins stood, a challenge to the accuracy

of prophecy. Then through the East the fame of Alexander the Great sent a thrill of terror.

He marched swiftly to attack new Tyre, 332 B. C. Reaching the shore, he saw the city he had

come to take, with half a mile of water surging between them, for it was built on an island.

Alexander’s plan of attack was speedily formed and vigorously executed. He took the walls,

towers, timbers, and ruined houses and palaces of the ancient Tyre, and with them built a

solid causeway to the island city. So great was the demand for material that the very dust

was scraped from the site, and laid in the sea.”

When the original objector made no movement, Mr. Emerson stood up to speak.

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“I grant the statements you have made concerning Tyre are true, but what of it? It

will be impossible for you to prove that the supposed prophecy was written before the events

it describes. At this great distance from the events, three or four centuries is a small matter.

Your argument is far from conclusive, and I for one believe the Book of Ezekiel was written

after Alexander’s time.”

Lecturer Dare smiled in reply: “Perhaps the fact that the events fit the prediction has

much to do with your conclusion.”

“And perhaps the fact that history verifies Ezekiel’s prediction,” retorted Mr.

Emerson, “has much to do with your belief that the prediction was written first. My

assumption has as much foundation as yours, and is more reasonable.”

“You overlook three great difficulties in your view,” replied Mr. Dare. “First, the

Encyclopaedia Britannica, fourteenth edition, Volume 9, pages 13, 14, under article,

“Ezekiel,’ is emphatic in stating that the Book of Ezekiel was written 586-450 B. C., and this

is the extreme critical view. Thus, according to the sceptical version, the prophecy is still 118

years before the event. But we will pass to the second difficulty.

“When you claim Ezekiel pretends to foretell what in reality was written after the

event it professes to predict, you make a book of otherwise high moral teaching a most

vicious book, dealing in deception of the basest sort.

“But, Mr. Emerson, while you create these two difficulties for yourself, there is still a

third inherent in your position that no sceptic can remove.

“I will admit, for the sake of the argument, that the book was written whenever you

desire, say 330 B. C. Even you cannot claim a later date.” Mr. Emerson nodded agreement.

“Perhaps you forget there are other particulars in the prediction besides destruction.

In some prophecies the cities were to be destroyed and rebuilt. Such was the fate of

Jerusalem, which still exists.

“The third difficulty of your view is that old Tyre was to be built no more. This

divine sentence of judgment has been a challenge down the centuries to every unbeliever in

earth. God has had a challenge sounding for twenty centuries, daring you and every other

sceptic to rebuild this city and thus disprove His Word.”

“I never heard of such a thing,” gasped Mr. Emerson in surprise. “Are you serious?”

“Certainly,” replied David Dare, “never more so. I will next tell you how to disprove

the Bible.”

4. HOW TO DISPROVE THE BIBLE

DAVID DARE’S STATEMENT that he could tell unbelievers how to disprove the

Bible, startled some of his listeners. A few Christians were shocked and said so. Unbelievers

were amazed.

Mr. Emerson arose, and spoke: “Do you mean to tell us that you admit the Bible can

be disproved?”

“On the contrary, I do not believe any part of the Bible can be disproved,” smiled Mr.

Dare.

“But you said you would show us how to disprove it,” insisted Mr. Emerson.

“And I will.”

“Your statements sound contradictory, but let’s hear what you have to say.”

“God Himself has not only dared you to disprove His predictions, but has also taken

the pains to tell you how. Tyre has continued a daily defiance to every unbeliever. ‘Thou

shalt be built no more: for I the Lord have spoken it,’ says the prophecy. Read it for yourself

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in Ezekiel 26:14. The reason it cannot be rebuilt is here given. Here is a test that God has set

for the boasting unbeliever — the simple one of rebuilding a city. To do that one thing would

disprove the Bible.

“And this is not asking an unheard-of thing. Many cities in the past have been rebuilt.

Even Rome rose again after Nero watched it burn.

“That a city can be built in a surprisingly short time, by a few determined men, was

proved recently when a marsh was transformed by one man into the modern city of

Longview, Washington, in two years. I visited the city personally, and marvelled at the

amazing feat.

“A dollar each from the unbelievers in England and America would be sufficient to

rebuild Tyre, and thus blast for ever the reputation of the Bible as a truth-telling book. Why

not form an infidel colony on the site of old Tyre, go into the fishing business in a modern

manner, and there, in defiance of prophecy, dare to answer God’s challenge, ‘Thou shalt be

built no more; for I the Lord have spoken it?’

“The site is habitable: ten million gallons of water daily gush from the springs, and

fertile fields stretch clear to the distant mountains.

“Since there are millions of determined doubters who write numberless books to

disprove the Bible, how did any prophet have the breath-taking daring to utter such a defiant

prophecy? For two thousand years no sceptic has dared say the prediction is untrue.

“In fact, Volney, the French sceptic, tells of visiting this spot and observing fishermen

drying their nets on the rocks, just as the prophet said they would.” (“Travels,” Vol. 2, page

212).

“Every year, every day, every minute that Tyre has remained in utter ruin it has

disproved the emphatic declaration of sceptics that Bible predictions are vague or were made

after the events which they foretell took place.

“ ‘A good guess,’ you say. But that is not a sufficient answer. It is especially lame in

view of the fact that no person outside of the Bible ever made a solitary correct forecast

covering hundreds of years concerning any city on earth. How is it that only Bible writers are

able to ‘guess’ with perfect accuracy two thousand years into the future?”

Mr. Emerson stood up to reply: “It would be natural for a writer, looking upon a

ruined city, to assume, hence to predict, that it would never again be inhabited.”

“Such an assumption, however natural,” replied Mr. Dare, “would have plunged the

prophet immediately into serious difficulty.

“To illustrate: Ezekiel turned his attention to Tyre’s still more ancient sister city only

thirty miles distant. For centuries it had been declining in power, while Tyre was still

glorying in the splendour of its heyday. Accepting your view of the day of Ezekiel adds

strength to our contention, for while Sidon was still in a state of decay it was taken by

Artaxerxes Ochus, king of Persia, in 351 B. C. , and destroyed!

“Now, according to your theory, Mr. Emerson, Ezekiel was written still later, at least

after Alexander’s time. So if the prophet were judging by appearances in 330 B. C. as you

claim he did judge, he would have pronounced complete oblivion as the inevitable fate of

Sidon, for nothing seemed more certain than its utter eradication. But Sidon still remains,

even now possessing ten thousand population. Let us read the words of the prophet Ezekiel,

chapter 28:20-23:

“ ‘The word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward Sidon,

and prophesy against it, and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee, O

Sidon. . . . For I will send pestilence into her, and blood into her streets; and the wounded

shall fall in the midst of her, with the sword upon her on every side.’

“Observe that the judgment on Sidon was not utter extinction like that on Tyre, but

only blood in her streets, wounded in her midst, the sword on every side. In spite of the fact

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that no other city on earth, with the possible exception of Jerusalem, has had so much

suffering, has been so often destroyed and rebuilt, Sidon has continued an uninterrupted

existence down to the present minute.

“Now, suppose Ezekiel had said that both Tyre and Sidon were to be destroyed and

were to be built no more, then every one of the ten thousand inhabitants of Sidon would be a

living proof of the falsity of the prophecy.

“Suppose, further, that the prophet had said Tyre was to live, but would undergo great

suffering, while Sidon was to be utterly destroyed and never rebuilt; how derisive the sceptic

would rightly be of the Bible claim to predictive accuracy!

“How did it happen that the prophet was exactly right in both cases? How is it that

the city that never has been rebuilt is the city of which this fact was foretold, and that the city

which has continued to exist with age-long suffering is that which the prophet foresaw would

continue in existence to the end of time?

“When you have explained this satisfactorily, you have a still harder question to

answer. Sidon, like many other ancient cities, might have sunk into insignificance, so that in

its utter defencelessness it could have offered no resistance to even a feeble enemy, and

would have tempted no one’s cupidity. How did Ezekiel know that, in spite of many terrible

experiences, it would continue a place of strength which, age after age, would be fought for,

and passed on, wet with blood, from one conqueror to another?”

Mr. Emerson replied: “These two cities were well known and powerful, but at the

time of the predictions there were indications of the fate that was to befall them. The

predictions turn out to be fairly accurate, but you cannot establish your thesis that the Bible is

true on so slim a basis.”

“Certainly not, and I do not claim to,” responded Mr. Dare. “A prophecy to meet any

test you desire to make can easily be produced. You claim that Tyre and Sidon had already,

to some extent, indicated in themselves their fate. We’ll take a city of which this cannot

possibly be said.

“Out of a score of such forecasts, notice two sentences about Ashkelon, a city hardly

less famous than the two we have just considered. Ashkelon shall be ‘a desolation,’

(Zephaniah 2:4); ‘Ashkelon shall not be inhabited.’ Zechariah 9:5.

“This city was founded in 1800 B. C. and was in the height of its power about the time

of Christ. So you cannot claim that at the time of the prediction its impending fate was

apparent to the observer. But how about it now?

“Let me quote from the fourteenth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume

2, page 544: ‘Now a desolate site on the seacoast twelve miles north of Gaza. . . .Protruding

from this sand-swept terrain, shattered columns and the remnants of ruined buildings and

broken walls bear ample testimony to a past magnificence. . . . The country around it is

fertile. Vines, olives, and a variety of fruit trees flourish.’

“Observe that this world-recognized authority, in describing the present condition of

Ashkelon, uses the very word of the prophet — ‘desolate.’ The prophet saw twenty-five

hundred years ago what the historian now sees, and both use the same word to describe the

final condition of that city. But to quote further from the same authority:

“Ashkelon ‘was the birthplace of Herod the Great, who adorned it with fine buildings.

During the Roman period it was a noted centre of Hellenic scholarship. It became also the

seat of a bishopric. From 104 B. C. for four and a half centuries it was an oppidum liberum of

the Roman Empire.’

“Thus on any theory of Biblical composition the city grew in importance for hundreds

of years after the prediction.

“In A. D. 636 it passed to the Arabs. During the Crusades it was the key to south-west

Palestine. Baldwin III captured it after six months’ siege in 1153. It was thus still a very

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powerful city fifteen centuries after the prophet foretold its destruction. During the next

hundred years its history was a bloody one. Finally, in A. D. 1270, Sultan Beibars destroyed its

fortifications and blocked its harbour with stones. Thus for 660 years the lofty towers of

Ashkelon have lain scattered on the ground, giving a picture of desolation; and the ruins

within its walls do not shelter a solitary human being.

“But suppose Ashkelon were, like Sidon, a flourishing city, or suppose the predictions

had been transposed, how eagerly would unbelievers seize upon the fact! And if it were a

fact, it should be used. The Bible says: ‘Never disdain prophetic revelations, but test them

all.’ 1 Thessalonians 5:20, 21, Moffat’s translation.

“You do the disdaining, but not the testing. Here are three cities. the prophets

foretold their condition exactly as they are today. However you choose to account for it, the

fact remains that these prophecies are true.”

Mr. Emerson took this occasion to speak: “You have picked out three cities. Surely,

if the Lord is the author of predictions, He tells us something about whole nations as well.

And the predictions should be given at a time when it would seem impossible for the forecast

to come true, and should reach to the present time.”

“Your suggestions are reasonable. Out of several countries which meet your test, we

will select the oldest country in the world — Egypt.”

5. EGYPT CONFOUNDS THE UNBELIEVER

YOU HAVE ALL admitted,” said David Dare as Mr. Emerson sat down, “that Tyre,

Sidon, and Ashkelon are today exactly as the Bible prophets said they would be. But you are

unwilling to admit, or are not convinced, that this uncanny foresight is due to any

supernatural gift.

“Yet you know that while the past and present yield their treasures, tomorrow is

mockingly silent.

“Let us always bear in mind during these talks how circumscribed is the most

remarkable foresight of the most astute statesman. The stream of history may flow uniformly

for a dozen centuries until shrewd thinkers reason from analogy that the course of events will

continue thus indefinitely. Then, unforseen, a single man such as Mohammed or Luther may

change the whole course of history; or a Watt, Edison, or Wright brothers may revolutionize

civilization.

“The prophecies I have already given are positive, accurate, and truthful to the

minutest detail; but we have only entered the doorway of the great prophetic temple.

“When Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel lived, Egypt was then so ancient that she boasted

a longer unbroken line of kings than did any other nation. To Ezekiel the settling of Egypt

was as ancient as the beginning of the Christian religion is to us.

“The prophets of his day, 600 B. C., knew Egypt as the granary of the world, eminent

in science, in the arts, in luxury and magnificence, a leader of civilization. For many

centuries these artificial mountains, the justly famed pyramids of Egypt, had stood as proud

sentinels of a proud country of many splendours.

“Like its own monuments, Egypt seemed to bid defiance to the tooth of time. All

nations had kindled the lamp of knowledge at the fire that burned on her hearth. She had the

unity, repose, and the calm majesty of conscious power, the grandeur of great age. To the

eye of the natural man, be he scientist or philosopher, there appeared on the horizon no

faintest cloud to threaten the peace and power of Egypt.

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“Nevertheless, at a time when all other men, judging by analogy, would have

predicted for her practically unending prosperity, Isaiah (chapter 19) and Ezekiel (chapters 29

and 30) foretold many amazing things concerning her, reaching more than two thousand

years beyond their death!

“When you get home, read these chapters carefully, as every verse is literally packed

with meaning. I shall not take time to quote more than a few of the more outstanding

statements.

“In a few words, Ezekiel foretold history that has taken twenty-five hundred years to

fulfil and would take several volumes to record. I quote Ezekiel 29:14, 15; 30:6, 7; 32:15;

30:12, 13.

“ ‘They shall be there a base kingdom. It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither

shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no

more rule over the nations.’ ‘The pride of her power shall come down. . . .And they shall be

desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of

the cities that are wasted.’ ‘I shall make the land of Egypt desolate, and the country shall be

destitute of that whereof it was full.’ ‘I will . . . sell the land into the hand of the wicked: and

I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers: I the Lord have

spoken it. . . . And there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt.’

“Every phase of the verses I have quoted is surcharged with meaning. The doom of

Edom and Chaldea and Babylon was utter extinction, but not so the fate of Egypt. The

inexorable decree was one of continual baseness and decline. It was to continue a nation, but

it was no longer to rule. On the contrary, it was to be ruled by cruel strangers.

“We have only to consider the condition of Egypt six hundred years later to see that

this prophecy could not have been the result of mere human foresight. In the time of Christ

there was nothing to indicate that the day of Egypt was past for ever. She was still very

powerful.

“Augustus, after the defeat of Antony, found so great wealth in Egypt that out of it he

paid all the arrears of his army and all the debts he had incurred during the war. Even after

he had spoiled Egypt at will, she still appeared to him so formidable that he was afraid to

entrust her rulership to any man of power, lest a rival to himself arise. So he gave the

government to Cornelius Gallus, a person of low extraction. He denied Alexandria a

municipal council and declared all Egyptians incapable of being admitted to the senate at

Rome.

“And for six hundred years more Alexandria continued the first city in the Roman

Empire in rank, commerce, and prosperity. Certainly the sceptic of that day might have read

the prophecy of Ezekiel with a mocking smile of derision.

“A hundred years later, Egypt was still so powerful that the Mohammedan hordes,

though arrogant with unchecked victory, hesitated to attack it. When Romulus and Remus

founded Rome, Egypt was then nearly two thousand years old. Rome waxed powerful,

conquered the world, including Egypt, and was in turn conquered by the barbarian hosts of

the north. But still Egypt continued powerful, rich, and populous. The Arabs finally decided

to attack her. The memorable siege of Alexandria lasted fourteen months, during which the

Arabs lost twenty-three thousand men. And then her capture was due to internal treachery.

The sight of the city’s magnificence and wealth filled the conquerors with amazement.

“The burning of the famous Alexandrian library was a world calamity. Its destruction

supplied the Arabs with fuel for six months. The wealth of Alexandria was an indication of

the riches and strength of the whole Egyptian nation. It would have been impossible for the

Arabs, despite their prowess as warriors, to take the land and to retain it had not the people,

groaning under the cruel oppression of their Greek masters, thrown themselves into the arms

of the invaders.

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“While the prophecy may seem slow of fulfillment, it has been certain. The decline,

though gradual, has been continuous. Let the infidel pens of Volney and Gibbon tell the

story.

“ ‘Such is the state of Egypt,’ says Volney, in his ‘Travels,’ Volume 1, pages 74, 103,

110, 193. ‘Deprived two thousand three hundred years ago of her natural proprietors, she has

seen her fertile fields successively a prey to the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the

Greeks, the Arabs, the Georgians, and at length, the race of Tartars distinguished by the name

of Ottoman Turks. The Mamelukes, purchased as slaves, and introduced as soldiers, soon

usurped the power, and elected a leader.

“ ‘If their first establishment was a singular event, their continuance is not less

extraordinary. They are replaced by slaves brought from their original country. Their system

of oppression is methodical. Everything the traveller sees or hears reminds him he is in the

country of slavery and tyranny.’

“And Gibbon tells us that ‘a more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised

than that which condemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude, under the arbitrary

dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been the state of Egypt about five hundred

years,’ — ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ chapter 59.

“Thus do infidel historians witness to the fact that Egypt has declined steadily until

during the past five hundred years and more she has been exactly what the prophet said she

would become, ‘the basest of kingdoms,’ ruled ‘by the hand of strangers.’

“And note this: not until modern times could the amazing accuracy of this prediction

be appreciated. The more facts we have with which to test this prophecy, the more true it

shows itself. Is there anyone here who claims Egypt to be different from what is pictured in

Ezekiel? How then do you account for the fact that Ezekiel is right, which of necessity you

admit?”

Mr. Emerson stood up again: “The writer had observed that in time nations are

conquered and become the servants of their masters. He had seen Babylonia and Assyria as

well as smaller kingdoms pass into the hands of others. Though Egypt was old and still

powerful, he reasoned that she, too, would in time suffer the fate of the others.”

“But, Mr. Emerson, you overlook a vital point in your argument: Egypt did not suffer

the fate of the others. Babylonia, Assyria, and other nations about were destroyed utterly.

Had Ezekiel been predicting by analogy, he would have said that Egypt would suffer the

same fate as the nations that had already been overthrown.

“Now, just suppose that Ezekiel had said that Egypt would, like Babylon and Chaldea,

be utterly destroyed, how jubilant would be the sceptics, and how eager to point out the fact

that the Egypt of today has many populous cities and a varied population which numbers into

the millions. But does the unbeliever attempt to show us a single prophecy concerning Egypt

that has failed?”

“Have you given all of them?” asked Mr. Emerson.

“I have only touched the edges of the subject. I will call your attention to only two or

three more marvelous predictions concerning Egypt,” replied Mr. Dare.

“I realize that to some here it may seem as if studying the history of ancient Egypt is a

dull and unsatisfactory way of seeking God. I do it because God Himself has told us that if

we study these prophecies faithfully, we shall be directed to Him.

“After all, it should interest us intensely to learn whether there actually did exist

twenty-five hundred years ago persons who could look ahead to our time and tell exactly the

fate of the cities and nations of their day.

“I now direct your attention to Ezekiel 30:13, A.R.V.: ‘Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: I

will also destroy the idols, and I will cause the images to cease from Memphis.’

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“Observe that these words are specifically the words of ‘the Lord Jehovah.’ If the

thing predicted did not come to pass, there would be no alibi.

“Now, it is a strange fact that Memphis, founded by Menes, was known as ‘the great

temple city of Egypt.’ A more unlikely fate could hardly be imagined than the destruction of

the idols and images of Memphis, because —

“1. The climate of Egypt, where it never rains, keeps in a state of perfect preservation

for thousands of years whatever is buried in its soil.

“2. In all other cities of Egypt, whether in ruins or now flourishing, idols and images

are found in superabundance. Thebes, former capital of Egypt, though in ruins while

Memphis was still in splendour, has them in abundance.

“3. At the birth of Christ, six hundred years after the prophet lived, the predicted ruin

seemed more impossible still, for Memphis was large and populous, Alexandria being the

only Egyptian city that exceeded it in size.

“4. At twelve hundred years after the prophet lived, Memphis was the residence of

the governor of Egypt. So you see it was impossible for the prophet to have written this

prophecy after the event.

“5. And in the thirteenth century, Abdul-Latif, an Arabian traveller, tells of the

‘wonderful works which confound the intellect, and to describe which the most eloquent man

would labour in vain.’

“Thus eighteen hundred years after the prediction it was still unfulfilled, and —”

Mr. Emerson stood up, and David Dare stopped abruptly.

“Mr. Dare,” he said, “I observe that your prophecies are a long, long time fulfilling.

A thousand to two thousand years are necessary for your prophecies to prove themselves.

Now, given enough time, any prophecy concerning the destruction of a city or nation must be

fulfilled. So, since these prophecies were uttered admittedly about twenty-five hundred years

ago, there has been ample time for them to be fulfilled. There is nothing so very miraculous

about it.”

A ripple of applause greeted Mr. Emerson as he sat down. Lucile leaned over and

patted her father’s hand approvingly, while George nodded in agreement.

“I was hoping, Mr. Emerson,” replied Mr. Dare as the applause died down, “that you

would make such an observation. Your very argument is proof you admit the fulfillment; that

you do not claim the prediction was written after the event or that the facts have been juggled

to fit the prophecy.

“The audience will please observe that if the fulfillment of the prediction is near the

date of the prediction, it is at once claimed the prophecy must have been written after the date

of the fulfillment. And if the fulfillment is two thousand years after the prediction, the

explanation then is that any prediction will eventually be fulfilled, given enough time.

“But unfortunately for this theory, some prophecies already mentioned and others to

be produced cannot be explained in this easy manner, and ——”

“Can you give me a convincing example? asked Mr. Emerson.

“Memphis, the very city we have been considering, is a good example, for time did

not destroy the idols and images of other Egyptian cities equally old. But listen to these

words from Amelia B. Edwards, Egyptologist, in her book, ‘A Thousand Miles up the Nile,’

pages 97-99: ‘And this is all that remains of Memphis, eldest of cities: a few rubbish heaps, a

dozen or so of broken statues, and a name! . . . Where are the stately ruins that even in the

Middle Ages extended over a space estimated at half a day’s journey in every direction? One

can hardly believe that a great city ever flourished on this spot or can hardly understand how

it should have been effaced so utterly.’

“But let us suppose that all that was necessary to fulfillment was time. Now turn your

attention to Ezekiel 30:12. ‘I . . . will sell the land into the hand of evil men.’ This certainly

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denotes unresisting surrender into the hand of an enemy, just as slaves were sold. The slave

has no rights, the wicked no mercy.

Volney, the French sceptic who travelled all over this country, calls Egypt ‘the

country of slavery and tyranny.’ Malte-Brun, another traveller, writes of ‘the arbitrary sway

of the ruffian masters of Egypt.’

“The history of Egypt for the past eighteen hundred years is but an amazing

commentary on the word, ‘I . . . will sell the land into the hand of the wicked.’ The impress

of that terrible hand is everywhere seen.”

Mr. Emerson interposed: “It would be a safe prediction to say evil men would

govern. Nearly always rulers of the past, especially conquerors, were evil men.”

“True,” replied Mr. Dare. “I am glad you admit the truth of the prediction, whatever

your explanation. However, in this connection consider another prediction in the same verse:

‘I will make the land desolate, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers.’

“for twenty-five hundred years Egypt was ruled by strangers — Persians, Greeks,

Romans, Byzantine Greeks, Saracens, Turks, French, and British — strangers as the

prophecy predicted.

“When confronted with the facts of fulfillment of prophecy, you are compelled to

admit the fulfillment; but when driven from one insufficient explanation to another, your final

explanation is, ‘It just happened.’

“The fact that it never has happened outside of the Bible, you do not attempt to

explain. But you do say you will not accept any explanation that has the supernatural in it.

“Is that a reasonable attitude, one that signifies a thinker? Surely the only attitude a

philosopher may rightly claim is one that proclaims him willing to follow the evidence, no

matter if it leads him to conclusions contrary to those previously held.

“At our next meeting we will consider the most all-embracing prophecy in the Bible,

outlining the history of all nations of the earth, beginning twenty-five hundred years ago and

reaching to the present moment, yourselves being the judges.”

6. THE DARING OF DANIEL

YOU STATED, MR. EMERSON, that any prediction given time enough would

eventually be fulfilled,” said David Dare, after the audience had been called to order by the

chairman. “You have given up the attempt to show that all prophecy was given after the

event, and now go to the opposite extreme and make time the solvent of your difficulty. We

shall see how completely time, instead of fulfilling, would refute the prediction of a prophet

of the Old Testament.

“The story of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire was first written, not by

Edward Gibbon the sceptic in the eighteenth century of the Christian Era, but by Daniel the

prophet in the sixth century B. C. And Gibbon the sceptic used six large volumes in telling us

in detail how accurate were the predictions of Daniel the prophet.”

Mr. Emerson arose, amazement in his face, excitement in his manner. “Do you claim

that Daniel wrote the book attributed to him in the sixth century B. C.? Why,” and here Mr.

Emerson turned to the audience and spread his hands wide in a gesture of helpless

astonishment, “why, in all the range of Bible criticism nothing is more widely accepted or

more easily proved than that the Book of Daniel was not written by Daniel at all, but was

written by some unknown author about 168 B. C.”

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“I am well aware of the fact, Mr. Emerson,” replied Mr. Dare, “that the heavy artillery

of the critics has been directed against the Book of Daniel since Celsus of the third century

discovered that the accuracy of these predictions could not be denied. In chapters 2 and 7 are

such clear predictions, giving in vivid outline the whole history of the world, beginning with

Babylon and reaching to the present moment, that the most sceptical have been hard put to it

to account for them without admitting supernatural knowledge on the part of the prophet.

“Infidels seem to think that if they can only show that Daniel never wrote a word of

the book, and that it was composed by some unknown person about 168 B. C. its power will be

broken and its prophecies vitiated. But for my purpose I will accept the latest date contended

for by anyone, and will not care who wrote it.

“It is not my purpose to go into the marvellous details of the prophecies of Daniel 2

and 7. It would take a whole series of lectures to cover the subject as it deserves. I plan to

develop only one point.

“No matter what the opinion of doubters concerning the date and authorship of

Daniel, they admit it teaches that beginning with Babylon there will be just four universal

world powers — four and no more — to the end of time.

“If, as I believe, Daniel lived in 600 B. C., he foretold the rise and fall of the three

empires to follow Babylon — a marvellous prediction in itself. It is to deprive Daniel of the

honour of having done this that sceptics have desperately contended that the Book of Daniel

was written in 168 B. C. — after Rome had acquired rulership.

“Then, if it is true, as the sceptics assert, that the writer of Daniel lived in 168, he had

knowledge of the fact that in a period of only four hundred years Babylon, Medo-Persia,

Greece, and Rome had ruled the world in succession. Babylon fell in 538 B. C., conquered by

Cyrus, king of Medo-Persia. At Arbela in 331 B. C., Alexander wrested the world empire

from Medo-Persia. The Roman victory at Pydna, June 22, 168 B. C., marked the final

establishment of the Roman world rule. Thus in three hundred and seventy years, 538 B. C. to

168 B. C., four empires bore sway.

“In view of this fact the predictions of Daniel 2 and 7, if written in 168 B. C., are fully

as remarkable as if they had been written in 600 B. C. Despite the fact that four world

kingdoms existed in four hundred years, think of the amazing daring of a man who would

have the temerity to predict that in all future history there would never be another world

power! How preposterous, how contrary to all analogy, to all previous history, to the wildest

imagination was such a prediction!

“If experience had been asked to guess the secrets of the future, the reply given by the

wise of earth of that day would certainly have been that the revolutions of the past would be

repeated again and again in the coming two thousand years as in the past four hundred years;

for then as now it was believed that history repeats itself.

“As the Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Persian, the Persian by the Grecian,

the Grecian by the Roman, so would every observant thinker also expect the Roman Empire

as certainly to be succeeded by some other world power. But was this the fact? Every

schoolboy knows that Rome was the last world kingdom.

“Unbelievers realize how unaccountably marvellous were the predictions of Daniel if

they were written while Babylon still ruled the world. And they think they have removed the

difficulty by bringing the composition of the prophecy down to the time Rome took control.

“But instead of solving the problem, they have only placed themselves in a dilemma,

and to me it is immaterial which horn of the dilemma they take; the problem remains as great

either way. Whether the Book of Daniel was written about 600 B. C. or 168 B. C. leaves the

problem of prediction unsolved.”

20

“I don’t see how you make that out,” interrupted Mr. Emerson. “For if Daniel was

not written until after the world empires had come and gone, certainly you lose the benefit of

claiming a prophet who foretold the rise and fall of those powers.”

“That is granted,” smiled David Dare. “But let us consider the matter both ways for a

moment. If Daniel was written about 600 B. C., it is conceded by sceptics everywhere that the

predictions are too marvellous to be explained away easily. But you sceptics overlook the

fact that if your contention that it was written about 168 B. C. be granted, you introduce

another marvel equal to the marvel you eliminate by putting the writing later.”

“I still do not see how that can be,” said Mr. Emerson.

“I’ll make it clear,” said Mr. Dare. “By putting the composition of Daniel in 168 B. C.,

you place three great universal kingdoms in the past instead of in the future. You thus give

the writer the analogy of immediately past history by which to judge the future. He has seen

four universal kingdoms arise in four hundred years. But in making his prediction, he goes

absolutely contrary to every fact of past history. This is what no philosopher, using all the

information at hand, would ever dream of doing. Hence, it is clear that the writer of Daniel

had some other source of information than that accessible to anyone else.

“On the other hand, if the Book of Daniel was written about 600 B. C., its author did

not have available any evidence of one universal kingdom followed by another, for the

nations before that date, while powerful, were not universal. Thus in 600 B. C. the precedents

of history were unsettled, while in 168 B. C. they were settled. The dating of Daniel in 168 B.

C. removes one difficulty only to add another, equally unsolvable by human wisdom. But this

is by no means all. Let us look at the picture Daniel draws of today.

“Imagine,” said the lecturer, “the bewilderment of the believer of 100 B. C. who read

the prediction of Daniel that there would never be another world dominion throughout all the

ages to come, except that of the kingdom of God; and imagine the derisive sneers of the

sceptics of that day over such an absurd prediction.

“But today, sceptic and believer alike look back through the ages to Daniel’s time,

and they both agree there has been no other. Read any history written by anyone. But in

particular, read the great history written by one of the greatest unbelievers of all time —

Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ — and you will see that this ‘immortal’

work is but an unwitting commentary on the uncanny accuracy of Daniel.

“Let Gibbon the infidel tell how the fierce, rude warriors of the north poured like a

flood against the Western Empire in the fifth century: but though they conquered Rome,

world dominion was denied them.

“However, the dream of world dominion did not pass with them. The pages of

history, for the past two thousand years, though wet with the blood of untold millions, record

in unvarying sequence with repeated failure of all attempts to establish a world power.

“The attempts to break the prophecy of Daniel went merrily on. The mighty

Charlemagne, the swift Charles XII of Sweden, the resistless, eagle-eyed Napoleon, the

ambitious Kaiser, and many other Goliaths of war have hoped to wear the toga of the mighty

Caesars, but always their endeavours have ended in failure.

“But not only did the prophet foretell that there would never be another universal

kingdom after the fourth, but he predicted the breaking up of the fourth into a number of

smaller nations which were to continue to exist, with exceptions noted by the prophet

himself, to the end of time.

“Now, can you imagine the predicament the Christian would be in today if

somewhere down the ages, after the fall of Rome, a world dominion like that of Rome had

thrust itself athwart the stream of history? Suppose some all-powerful Alexander of the

Middle Ages had conquered all the known nations of the world and had cemented them into

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one mighty empire subject to his sovereign will — what could I say? I pause to inquire if any

sceptic here can produce any such failure of prophecy.

“Every great king or powerful warrior assumed that someone was of necessity going

to be a world ruler, and asked why he should not be the one. And if just one had succeeded,

what an irrefutable argument against the truth of prophecy the sceptic would have! God

challenged the unbeliever twenty-five centuries ago either to make prophecies of his own or

to break one of His. As yet no one has done either.

“Each fulfillment taken by itself is a strong point in favour of divine wisdom on the

part of the prophet, but each additional fulfillment increases the strength of the evidence, not

by addition, but by multiplication.”

7. EVERY JEW A MIRACLE

I APPROACH THIS SUBJECT with a feeling of profound awe,” said David Dare,

after the crowd had been called to order by Dr. Morely. “Nowhere in all the world is there

anything so strange, so wonderful, so sad, as the Jew. He is the most pathetic, the most

unique being on earth.

“Vast ruins, mouldering palaces, broken sculptures, shattered and marred by the

violence and vengeance of barbarians, are all that remain of Rome, mightiest of kingdoms.

“The palaces of the Caesars lie desolate. The kingdom of Rome has sunk into

oblivion, the names of its rulers are forgotten, or remembered only for their merited infamy.

The iron kingdom, as foretold by Daniel, has been shattered and divided, and has no

successor.

“But the Jewish nation, whose downfall Rome in the heyday of her power

accomplished, whose Temple was annihilated, whose children Rome sold as slaves — that

nation still lives and thrives and multiplies on earth.

“Rome has long since passed away, but the Jewish people remain. Centuries before

Rome was founded the Jews were a powerful nation. The history of Rome — the mightiest

of kingdoms — was only a parenthesis in that of the Jews.

“Strange to observe, every nation that was an enemy of the Jews has perished. But

the Jews, oppressed, banished, enslaved, and spoiled wherever they were driven, have

survived them all and have overspread the earth. Of all the nations around Judaea, Persia

alone remains a kingdom. And it furnishes food for thought to observe that it was the

Persians who restored the Jews from the Babylonian captivity.

“In Leviticus and Deuteronomy, Moses clearly outlines the political and religious

history of the Jews for 3,400 years — from 1500 B. C. to this present moment.”

“But you cannot prove Moses wrote these predictions,” interrupted Mr. Emerson. “In

fact, it is generally conceded that the Pentateuch was not written until 800-600 B. C., a

difference of 700 to 900 years.”

“For our purpose,” smiled Mr. Dare, “it is immaterial whether the books credited to

Moses were written in 1500 B. C. or 100 B. C. So I’ll cheerfully accept your latest date. But

that will not solve your difficulty. I will ask you, Mr. Emerson, to read Leviticus 26:33, 36,

37, and 44; also Deuteronomy 28:25.”

“Certainly,” he replied. He opened his Bible as indicated, and read in a strong, clear

voice: “ ‘I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your

land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.’ ‘And upon them that are left alive of you I will

send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies.’ ‘And ye shall have no power

22

to stand before your enemies.’ ‘And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their

enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly.’ ‘the

Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against

them, and flee seven ways before them: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the

earth.’ “

“Thank you, Mr. Emerson. The scriptures just read are a very few that bear on the

subject. Please read the following in addition, for they are important and illuminating:

Jeremiah 15:4; 16:13; 9:15, 16; 24:9, 10; 15:7; Ezekiel 5:10; 7:19; 12:15; Amos 9:4, 9;

Jeremiah 8:3; Hosea 9:17; Isaiah 6:10-12; Jeremiah 31:10; 46:27, 28; Hosea 3:4, 5; and

above all, the whole of Deuteronomy 28.

“Now, here is another instance where time, instead of making the problem more

simple, makes it more difficult, for we can understand how a people might for a hundred

years mingle with other nations and remain distinct, but when this mingling extends to

twenty-five hundred years, how shall we account for that nation’s remaining distinct all that

time? The history of the world presents nothing else like it. Scores of other nations have

meanwhile risen up, remained distinct for a while, and then become entirely lost in the great

mass of humankind.

:Look at our own country. Millions from other nations pour in. For two or three

generations they preserve their nationality, but after that it is lost.

“But not so the Jews. They are in every nation, as predicted, and everywhere a

distinct people. They are indeed an astonishment. The Jew preserves all the characteristics

that he had many centuries ago. He has done what no other people on earth has ever done —

he has successfully resisted all the customs of society, all the powers of persecution, all the

powerful influences that tend to drive him toward amalgamation with other nations. the

children of Abraham are as distinct in religion, customs, and physiognomy as they were three

thousand years ago. How do you account for this?

“The blood stream of this particular people,” said Mr. Emerson, “was absolutely pure,

kept pure because they were forbidden by religious principle to intermarry. Hence racial

peculiarities have persisted.”

“True, they were forbidden to intermarry,” replied Mr. Dare. “Your explanation,

instead of explaining, adds another difficulty — that of explaining how Moses knew the Jews

would obey that mandate thousands of years later.

“Here is a case where every nation in the world has had a part in fulfilling the

prophecies of the Bible, for there is not a nation in all the world where the Jew has not gone,

and not one where he has not been oppressed in accordance with the prediction.

“Can you point out a solitary nation that has received the Jews with open arms? If

you could find half a dozen such, what a case against the Bible the sceptic would have! But

how amazing it is that the Jews have been thus oppressed in every nation and are the only

nation in all history to be thus oppressed.

“Another remarkable thing about it all is the fact that the records telling of their

shame are handed down to us by the very people we would naturally expect would want them

destroyed. No, there is no other instance of such remarkable fidelity to truth in all history.

“As foretold by Moses, the Jews have literally been ‘rooted’ out of their land.

Deuteronomy 29:25, 28. Not only that, but God says, “I will bring the land into desolation;

and your enemies that dwell therein shall be astonished at it.’ Leviticus 26:32.

“Please observe that while the Jews were to be deprived of their land, scattered to

every part of the world, and Palestine laid in ruins, still their enemies were to ‘dwell’ in it.

Could any prediction seem more improbable?

“Dean Stanley, in his ‘Syria and Palestine,’ page 117, says that ‘Palestine above all

other countries in the world is a land of ruins.’ Is it not a strange fact that a land so filled

23

with ruins should be inhabited? Or being inhabited, that the ruins should not have been

utilized or removed? But the inspired writer foresaw this fact, and you and I are compelled to

admit the marvellous correspondence of fact to prediction.

“Though ruined, desolate, bereft of her own people, Palestine was nevertheless to be

pre-eminently a land of pilgrimages, for Moses tells of ‘the foreigner that shall come from a

far land.’ Deuteronomy 29:22. And is this not true today? Is there any other spot on earth to

which so many pilgrims journey? Not one? More than half a hundred languages are spoken

in their city of Jerusalem alone.

“ ‘I will . . . draw out a sword after you,’ declares Jehovah, speaking to the Jews. (See

Leviticus 26:33). The history of this people has been one long, bloody commentary on the

uncanny accuracy of this prediction.

“Two million of them were killed, starved to death, or sold into a slavery worse than

death in A.D. 70. More than half a million more were slaughtered by the Romans sixty years

later. The history of the Israelites has been but the slaughter of a nation, continuing for

nineteen centuries — the sword drawn out after them.

“But let the words of the historian Milman tell the story: ‘No fanatic monk set the

populace in commotion, no public calamity took place, no atrocious or extravagant report

was propagated, but it fell upon the heads of this unhappy caste. In Germany the black

plague raged in all its fury; and wild superstition charged the Jews, as elsewhere, with

causing and aggravating the misery, and themselves enjoying a guilty comparative security

amid the universal desolation. . . .

“ ‘The same dark stories were industriously propagated, readily believed, and

ferociously avenged, of fountains poisoned, children crucified. . . . Still, persecuted in one

city, they fled to another, and thus spread over the whole [country]. Oppressed by nobles,

anathematized by the clergy, hated as rivals in trade by burghers in commercial cities,

despised and abhorred by the populace, their existence is known by the chronicle . . .of their

massacres.’ — ‘History of the Jews,’ Volume 3, pages 222, 223.”

8. SCEPTICS COMPELLED TO WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE

A SLIGHT RIPPLE of applause greeted David Dare’s appearance on the platform at

the next meeting. He smiled his acknowledgement, and began:

“Look at mighty Babylon in the heyday of her glory. Here was a city that seemed

destined to endure for ever. The ‘golden city’ had grown more and more powerful until it

was now the wonder of the ancient world.

“She drew her stores from no foreign country. She invented an alphabet; worked out

problems of arithmetic; invented implements for measuring time; conceived the plan of

building enormous structures with the poorest of all materials — clay; discovered the art of

polishing, boring, and engraving gems; knew how to reproduce faithfully the outlines of

human and animal forms; attained high perfection in textile fabrics; studied successfully the

motions of the heavenly bodies; conceived of grammar as a science; elaborated a system of

law; saw the value of exact chronology. In almost every branch of science she made a

beginning. Much of the art and learning of Greece came from Babylon.

“No, never had the world seen such a city. Its great rampart walls towered upward

two hundred feet, and on top several chariots could race abreast. Gleaming in the sun, its

lofty palaces and temple towers stabbed the sky above the towering walls and thrilled the

approaching traveller while he was yet miles away.

24

“Here was the magnificent temple of Belus; and here were the world-famous hanging

gardens, piled in successive terraces.

“Babylon was not only mistress of the world, but she reposed securely in the midst of

the most fertile region of the whole known world. The country was so astoundingly fruitful

that Herodotus feared he would be taken for a liar if he related what he had actually seen of

the amazing fertility of the soil there.”

Mr. Dare ceased speaking as Mr. Emerson arose.

“Everybody here knows these facts about Babylon,” he said. “We came here to have

infidelity refuted, not to listen to a lecture on the greatness of Babylon.”

“I am glad that you admit these facts,” smiled the lecturer. “And they most certainly

do bear on my subject; for even before Babylon had become ruler of the world, a prophet

wrote in a book and proclaimed openly that ‘Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of

the Chaldeans’ pride, shall be as when God overthew Sodom and Gomorrah.’ Isaiah 13:19,

A.R.V.

“A simple statement, that, but one which disproves utterly your contention that Bible

predictions are like Delphic oracles, so that no matter what happens, the event may be

interpreted to be a fulfillment of the prediction.

“In effect the daring prophet says: ‘I see the greatness of Babylon; I observe her

apparently impregnable walls. I know that she is mighty and powerful, the greatest city the

world has ever seen. Nevertheless, this apparently imperishable city of Babylon shall be as

completely obliterated as were Sodom and Gomorrah.’

“Looking back over the history of Babylon as we now know it, can anyone here in so

few words, or in any words, better express the present condition of the former mistress of the

world?

“But God saw you, Mr. Emerson, and all other doubters of today, and He caused the

Bible prophet to word His prophecy so plainly that you could never justly accuse Him of

double-meaning predictions. So He went on to say (Verse 20): ‘It shall never be inhabited.’

And for fear some hard-headed doubter might suggest that He meant something else, He

added, ‘Neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian

pitch tent there; neither shall shepherds make their flocks to lie down there.’

“Now, who can make anything ambiguous out of that? Is there anyone here who does

not understand these words?

“But this is by no means all. Even though the words were plain, the predictions seem

to be so utterly impossible that most readers would decide the writer to be either mistaken or

insane. But Jeremiah comes to the support of Isaiah, and the meaning of what these prophets

wrote is clear indeed, whatever people of any nation or clime or tongue may think of their

message.

“ ‘Thou [Babylon] shalt be desolate for ever.’ Jeremiah 51:26. ‘Babylon shall

become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without

inhabitant.’ Verse 37.”

Mr. Emerson indicated that he wished to speak.

“To be forewarned is to be forearmed,” he said. “After such messages of impending

destruction, the people would certainly have been prepared, if they knew of these

predictions.”

“Yes, the people of Babylon might have exerted their strength and ingenuity to ward

off their fate, but it would have availed them nothing, for ‘though Babylon should mount up

to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from Me shall

destroyers come unto her, saith Jehovah.’ Jeremiah 51:53.

25

“Is Babylon inhabited today? Is any human being dwelling there? Not even one?

Where is the man who will deny the truth of these predictions? Now, Mr. Emerson, I ask you

directly: Are these predictions true? Have they been fulfilled?”

“Come on, Dad, speak up,” urged Lucile. Then in a whisper aside to George:

“Looks as if he has dad really stuck.”

“Does look bad,” George admitted.

“Do you claim these predictions are wrong, Mr. Emerson?” Mr. Dare spoke again.

“Of course, every schoolboy knows Babylon has been uninhabited for centuries,”

came the answer. “But, Mr. Dare, how do we know that these predictions were not written

after the destruction of Babylon, and dated before?” Mr. Emerson sat down amid a slight

murmur of approval.

“Would you affirm these predictions were made after Christ’s time?” asked Mr. Dare.

“Of course not,” replied Mr. Emerson, “for everybody knows that they were included

in the Septuagint.”

“True, and so the crux of the whole question is, When were the prophecies of Isaiah

and Jeremiah written? As they were included in the Septuagint, they must have been written

before that translation was made. When was the Septuagint made?”

“About 200 B. C.,” answered Mr. Emerson.

“True,” replied Mr. Dare; “and for the purposes of this discussion, I will accept 200 B.

C. as the date of the composition of these predictions concerning Babylon. Will you accept

200 B. C. as the nearest possible date for the giving of these predictions, Mr. Emerson?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Does anyone here contend for a still later date?” asked the speaker, pausing for reply.

No one spoke. “then do you all agree that these prophecies I have quoted could not possibly

have been given later than 200 B. C.?” Again he paused, questioning. The audience nodded

agreement.

“Then we are a unit as to two things: First, that the predictions are true; and second,

that they could not have been made later than 200 B. C.”

Mr. Emerson spoke again: “If you admit, Mr. Dare, that the predictions you have

quoted were not written before 200 B. C., you have given your case away, your cause is lost.”

David Dare smiled. “On the contrary, the cause of infidelity is thereby made

extremely difficult.”

“How so?”

“Because of the astonishing fact that these prophecies were not completely fulfilled,

according to the admission of the most critical sceptics, until hundreds of years after Christ

was crucified.”

Gasps of surprise were heard all over the room. George looked at his sister with

raised eyebrows. She smiled back, happy, for she scented a real contest. Mrs. Emerson

looked annoyed. Mr. Emerson seemed startled. The audience leaned forward in interested

expectancy.

“Well, his argument begins to sound conclusive,” Lucile whispered to George.

“Just wait; dad isn’t through yet.”

“I should hope not!” she smiled.

“But this is by no means all,” went on Mr. Dare. “Not only was the fall of Babylon

foretold by these prophets, but they saw and described fallen Babylon as it is at this moment,

at least two thousand years since they made their amazing prophecies.

“Read thoughtfully the following: Isaiah 13; 14:4-12; 21:1-10; 47:11; Jeremiah

25:12-14; 50; 51. There is enough detail in these marvellous predictions to fill a book.

Those who think these predictions ambiguous, raise the hand.”

No hands went up.

26

“Now those who think the predictions plain and distinct, raise the hand.”

This time a sea of hands was lifted. “It looks almost unanimous,” he remarked.

“Since it was admittedly centuries after the predictions were written before they were

fulfilled, no one claims that the prophecies were written after the events predicted took place.

Does anyone here make such a claim? If so, please raise the hand.” Mr. Dare waited. There

was no response.

“All right. Let us get this clear now. Those who not only admit that the predictions

are clear and definite, but also that they were made before the events foretold, raise the right

hand.”

A sea of hands went up, quickly this time.

Lucile and George looked around, glanced at each other, and smiled.

“Looks as if Mr. Dare wins the first heat,” ventured Lucile.

Mr. Emerson looked perplexed. “First time I’ve seen dad so perturbed,” responded

George. Then he leaned over and spoke to his parent:

“Is this audience largely Christian, Father?”

“No,” said Mr. Emerson, puckering his brows, “and that is why I am at a loss to

understand this vote. I know many of the people here, and they are as sceptical as I am, yet

they are voting in the affirmative.”

“Could you vote any other way?” asked George.

“Not the way he worded his question, but we are not through yet. There are—” He

broke off as David Dare began to speak.

“Since the facts I have mentioned are admitted by all of you, how do you, Mr.

Emerson, explain their remarkable fulfillment?”

“Those prophets were austere religionists,” answered Mr. Emerson, “who saw the

wickedness of great cities, and to them Babylon was the symbol of evil; and as they believed

God more powerful than the cities, they believed He would overthrow them. So they actually

predicted what they so earnestly believed and desired, and not because they had the slightest

foreknowledge given from any supernatural source.”

Lucile nodded as her father sat down. “Not so bad, Dad,” she whispered.

“Clever and quite plausible at first thought,” smiled Mr. Dare. “But let us consider a

few facts. If the date 200 B. C. is accepted as the approximate date of the predictions, Rome

was then twice as old as New York is now, and grew more powerful than Babylon. But the

prophets never predicted the destruction of Rome. It still exists after 2, 600 years. Yet these

‘religious enthusiasts’ had as much reason to desire the extinction of Rome as of Babylon.

“The answer given by Mr. Emerson comes perilously near to admitting divine aid. He

does base his explanation on a sort of ‘religious enthusiasm’ which was so keen that it gave

the prophets an uncanny foresight into the future. But there seems to be more to it than just

the religious frenzy born of pessimism and misanthropy.

“Even if, in a sort of religious frenzy, Isaiah and Jeremiah had guessed right about the

destruction of Babylon, how can you account for the details of their predictions?

“That such a land, peopled with the world’s most highly civilized inhabitants, the

‘golden city,’ situated in the most fertile spot of the known world, should become a wild,

desolate, seared, wholly unproductive and uninhabited desert, was from a human point of

view utterly impossible, Not only had such a calamity never befallen any country at that

time, but such a calamity has never yet taken place in Europe, China, or America — not

anywhere but in Babylon — to the present day!

“Great Babylon, the city of Bel, the capitol and wonder of the world, fought against

Jerusalem, a giant against a pygmy and Jerusalem became the slave of the giant. But both

Babylon and its people have vanished like a dream in the night, while Jerusalem and its

27

people still remain. These facts, predicted by the prophets, need some explaining other than

to say the predictions are merely the vapourings of ‘religious enthusiasts.’

“ ‘Without inhabitant,’ said the prophets. How true. How weirdly, uncannily true!

But this is not all. The positions of the world’s most important cities are usually so well

chosen, so rich in natural advantages, that population clings to them. Dwindle and decay as

they may, some collection of human dwellings still occupies a portion of the original site.

Damascus, Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Byzantium, Sidon, have all

remained continuously cities of consequence from the time of their foundation thousands of

years ago to the present. But it remained for the greatest, richest of all, to sink into utter

oblivion. How do you account for that, and for the fact that this was all foretold so long

ago?”

As no one replied, the speaker continued:

“And we are by no means through. In Isaiah 13:20 we read that ‘neither shall the

Arabian pitch tent there.’ Now how did Isaiah know that the Arabian would continue to exist

after Babylon had become dust?

“Although a few humble Arabs lived in tents about Babylon twenty-five hundred

years ago, the Babylonians were the haughty rulers of the world. The utter extinction of the

ruling race was foretold, and all the world knows that there is not a solitary living

Babylonian. But the prophet also said in effect: ‘While the most powerful race on earth will

become extinct, together with their world-ruling city, this small, insignificant, nomadic race

of Arabs will continue on and on for two thousand years, long after this proud city has

crumbled to ruins and its very site is almost forgotten.’

“How did Isaiah know that the Arabs would continue to live near Babylon? Yet the

prophecy clearly implies this. Since they were a wandering race, it would be logical to

suppose that in time they would either leave the vicinity of such a place as we now know

Babylon to be or would themselves become extinct. But how did Isaiah know they would

remain about Babylon’s ruins for two thousand year’s; that they would be there today?

Imagine the jeering sarcasm of sceptics if there were not an Arab within a thousand miles of

Babylon! And what Homeric mirth would be theirs if all Arabs had become as extinct as the

dodo, before Babylon sank into oblivion!

“How did Isaiah know that the Arabs would continue to live in tents? In the ruins of

Babylon was ample material to build many villages by the simple process of transporting it to

more favourable spots. But Arabs dwell in tents to this day. The probabilities were all

against this. Of no other people has this been true in the world’s history.

“And how did Isaiah know that the Arabs would not make use of the ruins of Babylon

for shelter?

“Many explorers and excavators of recent years report that it is impossible to get

Arabs to remain on the site of this ancient city overnight. Captain Mignan was accompanied

by six Arabs completely armed, but he ‘could not induce them to remain toward night, from

apprehension of evil spirits. It is impossible to eradicate this idea from the minds of these

people.’ (‘Travels,’ page 235). Yet, as everyone knows, the Arabs are fearless fighters,

dangerous warriors.”

Mr. Emerson interrupted here. “You make quite a point out of the little prediction

about the Arabs. Some of your statements would be equally true of gypsies. They are a

nomadic people, living largely in tents.”

“The prophecy concerning the Arabs,” explained David Dare, “is so obviously true

that no one, not even you, Mr. Emerson. can deny the accuracy of the prediction. And the

remarkable correspondence of the facts today to the ancient forecast moves the sceptics to

bring in the gypsies to lesson the force of the prophecy.

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“But the case of the gypsies has no bearing. In the first place, they did not come into

existence until long years after the time of Isaiah. And in the second place, they do wander

everywhere. They have never remained, as have the Arabs, for many hundreds of years near

the ruins of ancient cities. So, even if the gypsies had lived in the time of Isaiah, his

prophecy would not have been true of them. It is still a fact that the prophecy about the

Arabs is amazingly unique in every particular, and every passing day serves only to

strengthen its force.”

Mr. Emerson indicated his desire to speak. “I grant that you have brought forward a

number of remarkable facts to make a case for prophecy, but surely you do not expect a few

unusual coincidences or amazing guesses to convince us. Have you not about exhausted your

evidence from Babylon?”

“On the contrary, I have only touched the edges of the abundance of confirmation.

there are more than a hundred particulars in the prophecy, each one which furnishes

remarkable evidence of prophetic foresight. All taken together, they would fill a large book.

I shall take time to mention but two more.

“In Jeremiah 51:58 we are told that ‘the broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly

broken.’ For centuries after this sentence of destruction was issued against these, the

strongest walls ever built about a city, they continued to be numbered among the seven

wonders of the world.”

“There is nothing so remarkable about either this prediction or its fulfillment,”

interrupted Mr. Emerson. “The prophet, as you call him, who would predict the destruction

of the city, would naturally predict the destruction of the walls.”

“You forget,” replied David Dare, “that all ancient cities had walls, and that other

cities with walls not nearly so strong as those of Babylon have been destroyed, but their walls

remain in a remarkable state of preservation. However, all I desire to prove by this is that

Jeremiah was right. Suppose, for instance, that the walls were standing today in grim

defiance of the prophet’s words. The Great Wall of china, not nearly so strong, though older,

is still standing. If you, Mr. Emerson, could tell this audience that you had seen Babylon’s

magnificent walls jutting, like the pyramids of Egypt, above the surrounding plains, what a

blow it would be against the Bible. But you can not do this, for the prophet was right as

usual.

“Finally, we read: ‘Chaldea shall be a spoil: all that spoil her shall be satisfied, saith

the Lord.’ Jeremiah 50:10. ‘Come against her from the utmost border, open her storehouses:

. . . and destroy her utterly.’ Verse 26. ‘A sword is upon her treasures; and they shall be

robbed.’ Verse 37. ‘Abundant in treasures, thine end is come.’ Jeremiah 51:13.

“There are two particulars to be noted: First, there is an implication in the little word

‘all’ that Babylon and the other cities of Chaldea would often be despoiled. Nothing like this

was predicted of Tyre or of Nineveh or of many other cities and countries doomed by

prophetic wrath to destruction.

“Second, how did the prophet know there would be riches enough to tempt and satisfy

spoiler after spoiler? Tyre was one of the richest cities of earth, but after one spoilation by

Nebuchadnezzar nothing was left to tempt another conqueror.

“But the teeming riches of Babylon and the surrounding country bade defiance to the

greedy ravages of successive plunderers. No sooner did a fresh horde of conquerors pillage

the country than another army was preparing to fight them for the booty, and loot the country

anew.

“Cyrus took huge treasures; Xerxes and his army took $150 million in gold alone,

besides other rich plunder. Then came Alexander, but so far from finding Babylon’s wealth

exhausted, he gave from her stores $50 to every soldier in his vast army and kept immense

wealth for himself. Continuously for two hundred years after the death of Alexander, the

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Parthians ravaged this country, and then came the Romans from a long distance, according to

the prediction, for the same purpose.

“One would think that after several hundred years of plundering, not much of value

could be left. Gibbon, the sceptic, is the best commentator on this prophecy, because an

unwitting one. He tells of numerous expeditions, covering a period of several hundred years,

gathered for the purpose of sacking Babylon’s ruins and the ruins of adjoining cities. He says

that the spoil was such as might be expected from the riches and luxury of an Oriental camp.

And later, when the Romans, under Heraclius, ravaged Chaldea, Gibbon tells us that ‘though

much of the treasure had been removed, . . . the remaining wealth appears to have exceeded

their hopes, and even to have satiated their avarice.’ — ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman

Empire,’ Volume 4, page 480.

“Again, Gibbon has painted the joy of still another band of conquerors in 636,

hundreds of years after the prophecy was uttered: ‘The naked robbers of the desert were

suddenly enriched beyond the measure of their hope or knowledge. Each chamber revealed a

new treasure secreted with art, or ostentatiously displayed; the gold and silver, the various

wardrobes and precious furniture, surpassed (says Abulfeda) the estimate of fancy or

numbers; and another historian defines computation of three thousands of thousands of

thousands of pieces of gold.’ — Volume 5, page 180. And this after centuries of ravaging,

looting, pillaging by the huge armies and mighty conquerors of earth! And rich treasures are

still being found right up to the present moment, as you will know.

“But nowhere on earth have the conquerors of empires gone back again and again for

hundreds of years for loot, and come away laden beyond the dreams of avarice, regardless of

the immense booty carried off by the previous despoilers. Yet the prophet foretold what the

sceptic Gibbon recorded as history.

“Although the picture of ruined Babylon was given so many years ago, there are few

spots on earth of which we have so clear and true a picture. The historian writing now cannot

so faithfully delineate conditions as did Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah more than two

millenniums ago.

“You may believe that they made clever guesses, or that the marvellous truth of all

their forecasts was coincidence only, if you can; but your credulity or faith in that convenient

solvent of difficulties, coincidence, arouses my wonder.”

9. INFIDEL RULER TRIES TO BREAK PROPHECY

DAVID DARE FOUND the hall crowded when he arrived. He chatted a few minutes

with friends, then met Dr. Morely, and together they went to the platform. As he arose to

speak, there was rather an unusual ovation.

Mr. Dare smiled acknowledgement. “I see you are interested in the subject

announced for today,” he remarked. “To me it is gratifying to see someone with the courage

of his convictions and willing to do more than talk about them. Most doubters never go

beyond the talking stage.

“After all, it should be an easy matter for infidels to disprove the Bible if they were

half as in earnest as they would have us believe. They need only rebuild old Tyre, or

Babylon, or Nineveh; for God has said that these cities will never again have inhabitants.

And He challenged the world to disprove His words if they could.

“If unbelievers would inhabit only one of these doomed cities, they would no longer

be compelled to argue the question of Bible prophecy, for they themselves would be the

living disproof of it’s truth.”

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“But that is a fantastic idea, and an absurd and unreasonable thing to ask of sceptics,”

protested Mr. Emerson.

“I agree with Mr. Dare, Dad,” whispered Lucile, as he sat down. “if doubters set such

store by their scepticism, let them venture something on it, or keep still. Certainly the

believers venture everything — their property and even their lives; the sceptics, not even a

few dollars. Yes, the speaker is right.”

“The thought of actually trying to disprove a prophecy,” replied Mr. Dare, “is not so

fantastic. It is just what ought to occur to the logical mind. It did occur to one determined

doubter.

“There lived a learned man about A. D. 300 who read the words of Jesus in Luke 21:24:

‘Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.’

He had once been a Christian, so he knew the predictions. He made up his mind that

Jerusalem should be trodden underfoot by the Israelites instead of by the Gentiles.

“This man also knew that the Bible foretold the utter destruction of the Jewish Temple

and its services, that the Jews were to be scattered to all nations of the earth, and that

Christianity was to go to ‘every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.’

“He was determined to overthrow Christianity, not by killing its adherents, which had

been tried by his predecessors for 250 years and had served only to increase its followers, but

by the more effective method of shattering the prophecies. Thus he would prove Jesus a liar.

And he had the power, if anyone ever had, for he was Julian, emperor of Rome, with an

immense army and the wealth and power of the civilized world at his command.”

“Aren’t you assuming a great deal when you assert that Julian had no other purpose in

mind than to disprove the Bible?” asked Mr. Emerson.

“That he intended to stage a contest between himself and God, that he consciously

planned to disprove prophecy, is stated by a writer as infidelic as Julian himself — Edward

Gibbon, the world’s accepted authority on that period, in chapter 23 of his famous history.

Rather than paraphrase, I will read Gibbon’s account:

“Julian ‘embraced the extraordinary design of rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem. In

a public epistle to the nation or community of the Jews, dispersed through the provinces, he

pities their misfortunes, condemns their oppressors, praises their constancy, declares himself

their gracious protector. . . . They deserved the friendship of Julian by their implacable hatred

of the Christian name. . . .

“ ‘After the final destruction of the temple by the arms of Titus and Hadrian, a

ploughshare was drawn over the consecrated ground, as a sign of perpetual interdiction. . . .

“ ‘The vain and ambitious mind of Julian might aspire to restore the ancient glory of

the temple of Jerusalem. As the Christians were firmly persuaded that a sentence of

everlasting destruction had been pronounced against the whole fabric of the Mosaic law, the

imperial sophist would have converted the success of his undertaking into a specious

argument against the faith of prophecy and the truth of revelation. . . .

“ ‘He resolved to erect, without delay, on the commanding eminence of Moriah, a

stately temple, . . . and to invite a numerous colony of Jews, whose stern fanaticism would be

always prepared to second, and even to anticipate, the hostile measures of the pagan

government.

“ ‘Among the friends of the emperor . . .the first place was assigned, by Julian

himself, to the virtuous and learned Alypius. . . .This minister . . .received an extraordinary

commission to restore, in its pristine beauty, the temple of Jerusalem. The desire for

rebuilding the temple has in every age been the ruling passion of the children of Israel. . . .

Every purse was opened in liberal contributions, every hand claimed a share in the pious

labour, and the commands of a great monarch were executed by the enthusiasm of a whole

people.

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“’Yet, on this occasion, the joint efforts of power and enthusiasm were unsuccessful;

and the ground of the Jewish temple, which is now covered by a Mahometan mosque, still

continued to exhibit the same edifying spectacle of ruin and desolation. . . .

“ ‘The Christians entertained a natural and pious expectation that, in this memorable

contest, the honour of religion would be vindicated by some signal miracle.

“ ‘Whilst Alypius, assisted by the governor of the province, urged, with vigour and

diligence, the execution of the work, horrible balls of fire breaking out near the foundations,

with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered the place, from time to time, inaccessible to the

scorched and blasted workmen; and the victorious element continuing in this manner

obstinately and resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance, the undertaking was

abandoned.’

“Julian could have rebuilt a whole city with his wealth and power, but he could not

rebuild a single temple. He began his work with a great flourish of trumpets, advertised to

the whole world his purpose, and the reason for it; he was going to disprove the Bible

prophecies and so destroy Christianity.

“Account for it as you please, two facts remain: First, Julian boasted he was going to

disprove Bible prophecy by doing what the Bible had said would not be done; second, with

all the wealth and power of the world at his command, he failed.”

Mr. Emerson stood up, and David Dare listened while he spoke. “Do you believe,

Mr. Dare, that God predicted the event and then supernaturally intervened to see that His

word was not thwarted? Was it not rather the superstition of the workmen that defeated the

project?”

“It is immaterial whether the workmen were discouraged by superstition or not. The

prophets did not say how such attempts to rebuild were to be defeated. The public were

invited by God Himself to defeat His prophecies if they could. Here was a man who boldly,

boastingly accepted the challenge, put the power and wealth of the Roman Empire into the

endeavour, and miserably failed. God had said all such attempts would fail. I am glad that if

the endeavour was to be made, one who was wealthy, and who was more powerful than any

man now living, tried it. No one else since Julian’s day has made a similar experiment.

“Interesting as all this discussion has been to the student, the most important topic of

all will be introduced next week: Christ — the Heart of Prophecy and History.”

10. CHRIST — THE HEART OF PROPHECY AND HISTORY

AMONG THE EARLY arrivals were Mr. and Mrs. Emerson, accompanied by George

and Lucile. But early as they were, others were already seated in the hall, discussing in

earnest tones the points presented in previous lectures.

“There will be a big crowd tonight,” ventured Lucile, as people came in increasing

numbers.

“Naturally,” replied her father. “From any point of view, this is the most important

subject.”

“Of the series?” she queried.

“No, my dear, the most important subject in all the world,” he asserted, an unusual

seriousness in his voice.

George and Lucile regarded their father in amazement and incredulity.

“But — but, Dad,” the girl finally stammered, “I thought you were an out-and-out

unbeliever!”

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“I am, but that does not prevent my realizing that no subject in all the world exceeds,

or even approaches in consequence, the question of whether Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose

again, as recorded in the New Testament.”

Lucile still regarded her father with questioning and incredulous eyes.

“Do many infidels believe as you do about this, Dad?”

“Practically all. And the leading ones have so expressed themselves.”

During this conversation George and Mrs. Emerson had been amazed and interested

listeners. Soon the hall was filled to capacity, and still the crowds came. Mr. Dare was

introduced by Dr. Morely.

“It is my intention,” Mr. Dare said, “to consider only a very small part of the

evidence bearing on the supremely important topic of today. Many valuable books, ably

presenting the matter, merit your reading.

“All through His ministry, Christ appealed to the prophets in proof of His startling

statements. The appeal to prophecy was not just an argument to prove Jesus the messiah, but

frequently it was the sole argument. There are more than three hundred prophecies and

references to Christ in the Old Testament that are expressly cited in the New Testament, as

predictions fulfilled in Him.

“And no one can say these predictions were written after Christ’s time, for the last

book of the Old Testament was written 400 years before Christ walked the streets of

Nazareth; or if we accept the extremely critical opinion, it was at least 168 years. So there

could have been no collusion between the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament

evangelists.

“On Christ’s first public appearance He appealed to prophecy: ‘This day is this

scripture fulfilled in your ears.’ Luke 4:21.

‘Then He said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets

have spoken.’ Luke 24:25. And to show His disciples how they should study the bible,

‘beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the

things concerning Himself.’ Verse 27.

“However much sceptics may flout prophecy, they admit that the Old Testament does

give frequent intimations of the coming of a remarkable personage. And they know that for

ages the whole Jewish nation lived in eager expectation of a Messiah. The surrounding

nations, their enemies, knew the Jews had this expectation, and mocked them because of it.

“Some of the passages upon which the expectation was founded were the promise of

the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15; the declaration that in seed of Abraham should ‘all

the nations of the earth be blessed,’ in Genesis 22:18; the statement that Shiloh was to come

out of Judah before the dominion of that tribe should depart, as foretold in Genesis 49:10;

that a prophet like Moses was to come, according to Deuteronomy 18:18, and quoted by Peter

in Acts 3:22, as fulfilled in Christ.

“A remarkable part of prophecy foretold His inclusion of the Gentiles, whom the Jews

hated. Yet they recorded and jealously preserved even that prediction. ‘I will also give thee

for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth,’ we are

told in Isaiah 49:6. In Isaiah 60:3 the prophet says of God’s people, ‘The Gentiles, shall

come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.’

“The prophecy about this coming Messiah was filled with startling pradoxes. In

Isaiah 9:6 we are told that this Son of time is the Father of eternity; this weak Babe is the God

of all might.

“The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah stated that the coming One was to be cut off from

the land of the living, a young man without offspring, yet He shall prolong His days, shall see

His seed, which shall be so numerous that even He shall be satisfied. He is to be put to death

as a despised malefactor, to make His grave with the wicked, and yet the sepulchre of the rich

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is to be His tomb. He is to be scorned and rejected of men, and yet to justify many. He

Himself is to be treated as a transgressor, and yet is to make intercession for transgressors.

Perplexing paradoxes, these!

“So impossible did it seem that one person could fulfil the requirements, that many

Jewish leaders said two persons were necessarily foretold. But Christ fulfils every

paradoxical requirement so naturally that we have ceased to observe the actual incongruity of

the predictions. They no longer even seem incompatible.

“It is admitted that many centuries before the time of Christ, certain writings by

Jewish writers foretold that a member of the Jewish nation, small and insignificant though it

was, should be a blessing to all mankind. As we shall abundantly prove later, the most

doubting scoffers proclaim enthusiastically that Christ has been and still is, above all others

of the human race, a blessing — the greatest blessing — to all mankind.

“Account for it as you please, it is a stubborn fact that this obscure Jew of a small,

despised, subject race has become most gloriously a blessing to every nation on earth. This

strange prophecy that seemed to be born of the overweening egotism of a race, has become a

perennially amazing fact.

“Furthermore, the time of His coming was clearly marked. It was to be not only

before the sceptre departed from Judah, but also while the second Temple was standing. ‘I

will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and . . . the glory of this latter

house shall be greater than the former, saith the Lord of Hosts.’ Haggai 2:7-9.

“But this is not all: Daniel gives the exact year of Christ’s appearance as the Messiah,

and of His crucifixion. (See Daniel 9:24-27 and Ezra 7:11-26 for the date of the decree, 457

B. C.) This is one of the best-established dates in all history.

“The 69 weeks, or 483 prophetic days, or literal years (see Numbers 14:34 and

Ezekiel 4:6), begin at 457 B. C. and reach to A. D.27, at which time Christ was anointed as the

Messiah by the Holy Spirit. (See John 1:29-36; Luke 3:21, 22; 4:18; Acts 4:27; 10:38;

Mark 1:14, 15, marginal date). The middle of the seventieth week, or seven-year period,

brings us to the spring of A. D. 31, when the Messiah was to be ‘cut off.’

“However one may attempt to explain them away, these prophecies and dates do fit

exactly with the life of Christ, and nowhere else.

“From explicit passages in the writings of the heathen historians, Tacitus and

Suetonius, we find a general expectation that an extraordinary person would arise in Judea

about the time Jesus was born. So strong was this expectation among the Jews that many

false messiahs appeared, appealed to the prophecies, and gained followers among those who

were looking for the Messiah, and that the Temple could not be destroyed before the coming

of the Messiah, that they refused all terms from Titus in A. D. 70, and fought with

desperation to the last.

“To sum up: it is immaterial to me how you account for it, but several marvellously

demonstrated facts stand out:

“1. Centuries before Christ was born a number of Jewish writers, living over a period

of 1,000 years, boldly predicted that one of their race would be pre-eminently righteous.

“2. He would be a prophet.

“3. He would be rejected as the Messiah by the very people who foretold His coming,

but would be accepted as the Messiah by every other nation on earth.

“4. He would be a blessing to all mankind.

“5. He would live in a certain definite, specified time.

“6. He would be killed.

“7. He would die as a malefactor.

“8. All these facts are testified to by prominent heathen writers.

“9. He was to be not merely a very superior human being, but God on earth.

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“10. No one else meets these specifications, and Jesus Christ does.

“11. The truth of the system of Plato or Karl Marx or Buddha or Mohammed does not

depend on the question whether they were good or bad men. But if a flaw could be shown in

the character of Christ, the whole Christian system would collapse utterly and at once.

“His character stands as the foundation of the whole Christian fabric. Sceptics know

this, and still they do not attack, but uniformly praise Him! His character is so winning, so

lovable, so beautiful, so strong, so perfect, that though, like Gilbert West, they begin their

studies with the intention of attacking, they end in most enthusiastic praise, and often in

worship.

“Christ runs through the Old Testament as well as the New, like the lifeblood through

our bodies. He is the golden link that binds all its parts together, the light that illumes all its

secret chambers, the key to its deepest mysteries and the keynote to its eternal harmony, the

heart of every Bible book and prophecy.”

Mr. Emerson, who had been quiet during the whole talk, arose to speak. David Dare

turned in smiling expectancy to him.

“Mr. Dare,” began Mr. Emerson in earnest tones, “I have refrained from interrupting

you, for I have a real regard for the Christ, and do not want to appear in the role of a cheap

disturber. Although your evidence regarding Him is interesting and not easily dissipated, it is

far from convincing. For instance, Genesis 3:15, ‘I will put enmity between thee and the

woman,’ etc., seems to me rather an unstable foundation on which to base a prophecy of

Christ. And most of your other instances appear to me to be equally unsatisfactory.”

“I agree with you, Mr. Emerson,” replied Mr. Dare.

Lucile gasped, as did her brother and father and many others in the audience.

“You agree with me!” Mr. Emerson exclaimed. “I don’t understand.”

“Nevertheless, I agree with you. Any one of the more than three hundred predictions

relating to Christ is insufficient to prove that He was the expected Messiah. They are like the

strands of a rope, individually unable to bear much weight. But taken altogether, and woven

into a rope of evidence, they form a bond which cannot be broken. Other strands will be

woven into our rope of evidence.

“In estimating the influence of Jesus on history,” continued David Dare, “consider the

difference between Christ and all moralists and philosophers. To gather all the wise and good

precepts of all the different philosophers, and separate and discard all the error and gross

immorality and absurd superstition in their teachings, would have been a great work. But that

a single person, unacquainted with these philosophers, and unlearned in the wisdom of men,

should in direct opposition to the established practices and maxims of his own country,

formulate a system so admittedly superior to all others, challenges the studious attention of

everyone.”

Mr. Emerson arose. “Do you mean to imply that the philosophers were absurdly

superstitious, and the moralists themselves immoral?”

“Exactly! That is just what I mean to say,” said Mr. Dare. “No heathen moralist ever

opposed himself to the prevailing vices and corruptions of his own time and country. No

heathen moralist ever endeavoured to curb the inhuman and horribly bloody sport of

gladiators; none spoke against lust, the deliberate, slow killing of infants and slaves by

exposure, or the public encouragement and establishment of brothels. The most amazing,

indecent revellings were openly practised as part of their heathen religion, and the greatest

philosophers and moralists never lifted a voice against them.”

Mr. Emerson interrupted again. “You surely cannot say these harsh things about such

men as Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and Seneca. These men at least were not guilty of the

things you say.”

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The lecturer shook his head. “I am sorry to say that I must. Plato not only expressly

allowed excessive drinking at the always-disgraceful festival of Bacchus, but he and Aristotle

both directed that means should be used to prevent weak children from being reared. Plato,

Cicero, Epictetus, and other famous philosophers advised men to continue the idolatry of

their ancestors. Diogenes and Socrates inculcated and practised the most brutal lust, and Cato

commended young men for frequenting brothels. Plato recommended a community of

prostitutes, and advised that soldiers should not be restrained from even the most obscene and

unnatural sensuality. And such things were encouraged and protected by the laws of the

states. Solon, the great lawgiver, forbade lust only to the slaves. Zeno, the founder, and

Cato, the ornament, of Stoic philosophy, and Seneca, the great moralist of Nero’s time, were

all suicides. In fact, the things that these men, the ornaments of ancient times, did and

encouraged cannot possibly be related to a mixed audience, or to any audience.”

“But they taught many fine things,” insisted Mr. Emerson.

“Granted,” replied Mr. Dare. “That is the point I am making. These men were

admittedly the greatest of the heathen world, and the best they, who were the best, could give

in life and precept was so poor that the human race was in a bad way indeed.

“But it is admitted by infidels, as I shall prove later, that Christ, with no secular

education, so far outstripped all the moralists and philosophers combined that they rank a

very poor second.”

Mr. Emerson arose again. “You have presented very fair evidence that Christ fits the

specifications of the predictions of the Old Testament. Even so, that does not prove that the

religion of Christianity was established by Him.”

“Well, let us inquire briefly into the establishment of Christianity,” Mr. Dare replied.

“That it exists and hence came into being in some manner, no one denies.

“There can be only two theories of its origin — it was founded either by impostors or

by Christ.

“The propagation of this new religion was an exceedingly dangerous occupation from

the first. To the Jews, Christianity was not only contrary to their long-established beliefs, but

to those opinions on which were built their hopes and consolations.

“They looked for a Messiah to deliver them from the Romans. Even to think that

these expectations might be disappointed, enraged them. The whole doctrine of Christianity

was novel and offensive to them. The extending of the kingdom of God to the Gentiles was a

concept foreign to the Jew and certain to antagonize him, rather than win him to the new

religion.

“Worse yet, it was necessary for the followers of Jesus to reproach the Jews with an

unjust and cruel murder. This only made their work more difficult and dangerous. The

disciples of Christianity had to contend with prejudice backed by power. They appealed to a

people whom they first disappointed and then enraged — certainly a strange way of

introducing a new religion.

“But this was only the beginning of difficulties. Christianity struck at the reigning

power — at Rome — and made an enemy of every other religion in existence. It boldly

denied, at the very outset and with no reserve, every article of heathen mythology and the

existence of every god the heathen worshipped. It accepted no compromise. It could prevail

only by the overthrow of every statue, altar, temple, and god connected with heathen

religions.

“Christianity was not just another religion to be added to the one thousand already

existing, but was a bold denouncing of all other gods as false, all other worship as vanity and

folly and deceit.

“Consider here another fact. The ancients regarded religion as entirely an affair of the

state — not just allied to it, but an integral part of it. Thus an attempt to overthrow the

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religion of the state was regarded as a direct attack on the government, as treason, punishable

by death. And the early Christians knew this.

“Furthermore, the religious systems of the time had long been established. From

ancient days their priesthood, endowments, rituals, and magnificent temples had witnessed to

their power. Statuary, painting, architecture, and music contributed to their ornamentation,

magnificence, and influence.

“These religions abounded in festivals to which the populace was devoted. Their

religion, says Gibbon, ‘was moreover interwoven with every circumstance of business or

pleasure, of public or private life, with all the offices and amusements of society.’

“It is clear from the testimony of Pliny and Martial that the deaths of Christians were

true martyrdoms; that is, they could have saved their lives at any time by joining the heathen

exercises.

“And if Christ was put to death, could His followers expect to escape a like fate,

especially in view of the fact that Christ told them that death would be their fate? Even so,

there was not the slightest tendency to draw back, even when confronted with the most

terrible torture.

“These effects must be explained by adequate causes. When people in large numbers

suffer horrible torture and certain death rather than merely continue in their former method of

living in order to live, here is an effect that must have an adequate cause. And untold

millions have thought Christ to be the adequate cause. Even infidels concede it, as will be

shown.

“Furthermore, all accounts of the origin of Christianity agree. Both sacred and

secular writers say the same thing: Christ was put to death in Jerusalem by authority of the

Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. No contemporary or successor contradicts the story. Even

the Jewish writers have not a word to the contrary.

“Neither Pliny in the first century, Celsus in the second, Porphyry in the third, nor

Julian in the fourth even suspected the authenticity of the New Testament, or insinuated that

the Christians were mistaken in the authors to whom they ascribed the New Testament.

“But here are the facts of a strange story that all these writers are agreed on: In the

reign of Tiberius Caesar a number of people set about establishing a new religion in the

world, and in the prosecution of this endeavour they voluntarily encountered great dangers,

undertook great labours, sustained unheard-of sufferings, all for the story that a dead man,

who was executed as a malefactor, had been raised to life. And this strange story has

revolutionized history, changed the tide of empire, and altered millions of lives for the better.

“If the people who published this amazing story were not sincere, they were the

biggest liars and fools ever on earth. They were villains for no purpose except to teach

honesty, and with no prospect in life except to die a cruel death, execrated by all.

“Never in all the history of the world have men, women, and even children,

voluntarily undertaken lives of want, of incessant fatigue, of perpetual peril, submitting

cheerfully to loss of home and country, to the endurance of stripes and stoning, to long and

cruel imprisonments, and even to being torn asunder by lions or burned to death, for the sake

of spreading abroad a story they knew to be false, or that they thought might be false. People

have never suffered these things for any other cause except for what they most earnestly

believe. These facts are so well known that they are not denied by anyone, nor can they be

explained away.

“Even sceptics of the most rabid admit the beneficial effects of Christ’s life as the

most important influence ever to appear in the world.”

Mr. Emerson stood once more. “You have made a number of references to what you

are going to prove by unbelievers, but as yet have offered evidence from none of them.

37

When may we have this proof?” His question was followed by an impatient murmur of

accent.

“At the next lecture,” replied David Dare. “And I will ask you Mr. Emerson, to read

these references from the books written by the sceptics, so that you may see for yourself and

for the audience that the quotations are from the infidels I say, and are not misquoted. They

will all be from the original books.”

11. INFIDELS TESTIFY FOR CHRIST

AFTER THE EMERSONS were seated the next Sunday evening, Lucile leaned over

to whisper: “Do you suppose, Dad, that he can really show that sceptics admit Christ to be

the most important figure in all history?”

“I don’t see how he can,” replied her father, brows puckered in deep perplexity, “for if

they do admit that, they will have to be Christians.”

George, who had been listening, spoke up, “Probably he will quote only obscure

writers.”

Mr. Emerson considered this for a moment. “Sounds reasonable, George; I think you

are right.”

“I have noticed,” observed Mrs. Emerson, “that Mr. Dare has so far always done what

he has promised — yes, even more than you would expect from his words. I am confident he

will produce leading, well-known sceptics to prove his point.”

The other three members of her family regarded her in amazement. “Why, Mother,”

gasped Lucile, “has he converted you?”

“No, but I cannot help noticing that one by one the supposed unbreakable props

supporting unbelief have been removed until not many remain. It seems to me that the

doubter’s house is tottering. And now he promises to use unbelievers themselves to finish the

work. I like the way he is doing this.”

They looked in increasing surprise at the usually meek and quiet Mrs. Emerson. “But

Mother ——” began George.

“Hush!” whispered Lucile. “Here comes Mr. Dare.”

The speaker regarded his frankly impatient audience with a smile of welcome.

“I am glad to see you all back again. Last week we called attention to the fact that

while we cannot now cross-examine the writers of the Gospels, they were cross examined as

no other witnesses have ever been examined since the world began.

“They were examined and cross-examined, not only by shrewd enemies like the Jews,

astute reasoners like the Greeks, and nimble-minded lawyers like the Romans, but also by

fire, sword, cross, flogging, and death. The Gospels are the only historical records in the

world tested by the torture of the historians and of many who believed their accounts.

“Now if we accept the writings of other historians whose veracity has not been tested

by the scorching fire of persecution, how much more should we rely on the writings of the

evangelists, whose accounts have been thus tested.

“The Man about whom the evangelists wrote would of necessity be amazingly

unusual to inspire such unheard-of fidelity on the part of those who wrote about Him.

“But he was not only the most amazing, the most lovable, and the most powerful man

in all history to the evangelists, but to modern sceptics as well —”

38

“Mr. Dare,” interrupted Mr. Emerson, “you have made similar statements a number of

times, but as yet have offered no evidence. With all due respect to your sincerity and

truthfulness, we must have more than your say-so.”

A ripple of applause drowned out the lecturer’s first attempt to reply. The audience

was clearly in a mood that demanded direct action.

“All right. You shall have it right now. Mr. Emerson, will you please come forward

and read from these sceptical writers as I shall hand the books to you?”

“With pleasure,” he replied as he made his way down the crowded aisle to the

platform, where he was cordially greeted by both the lecturer and Dr. Morely, the chairman.

“I hand you this book,” said the lecturer, holding out a large volume to Mr. Emerson.

“Will you please tell this audience about the author and his writings?”

Mr. Emerson examined the volume in his hand, then spoke so that all could hear:

“This is volume 2 of ‘History of European Morals,’ by William E. H. Lecky, who is

also the author of ‘History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe.’

Mr. Lecky was an Irish historian, statesman, and philosopher who died in 1903, and a leading

unbeliever of his time and country. He wrote four large volumes to prove that rationalism is

the only guide a reasonable man can follow.”

“Then you would regard Lecky as a leading unbeliever of his day?” asked Mr. Dare.

“Decidedly,” replied Mr. Emerson.

“Now, please turn to pages 8 and 9, of the book you have, and read the passages

marked,” directed the lecturer.

Mr. Emerson’s clear, strong voice was heard in every corner of the large auditorium

as he read from the place indicated:

“ ‘It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character, which

through all the changes of eighteen centuries has inspired the hearts of men with an

impassioned love; has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and

conditions; has not been only the highest pattern of virtue, but also the strongest incentive to

its practice; and has exercised so deep an influence that it may be truly said that the simple

record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind

than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortions of moralists.’ “

“Thank you — that will do for the moment.” Mr. Emerson seated himself next to Dr.

Morely, while the lecturer turned to the audience, from whom subdued ejaculations of

amazement were heard.

“Well, that was a centre shot,” gasped Lucile. Mrs. Emerson showed pleasure, and

George looked puzzled.

“These words do affirm that Christ is the heart of all history: and not only that, but

that three years of His life were more powerful for good than all the lives and productions of

all the moralists and philosophers in the world. These are the words of a confirmed, avowed,

world-renowned sceptic, written after years spent in carefully weighing all the evidence as an

impartial historian.

“Such enthusiasm you might well expect to come from a warm believer, but I, equally

with you, am amazed that such abounding extravagance of praise should come from a famous

sceptic. But such is the fact, and it is not my business to explain it.

“If he were the only one to say such laudatory things, we might well regard it as a

puzzling exception among the bold attackers of the Bible. But now I hand you another

volume, Mr. Emerson. Will you please examine it and tell the audience about this writer?”

After a minute examining the book, Mr. Emerson said: “This is ‘Three Essays on

Religion: Nature, the Utility of Religion, Theism,’ by John Stuart Mill, an English economist

and philosopher who died a few years before Lecky. He was likewise noted as a pronounced

unbeliever.”

39

“Very well,” said David Dare. “Please read from pages 253 to 255, as indicted.”

“ ‘Christ is still left; a unique figure, not more unlike all His precursors than all His

followers, even those who had the direct benefit of His personal teaching. It is of no use to

say that Christ as exhibited in the Gospels is not historical, and that we know not how much

of what is admirable has been super-added by the tradition of His followers. . . . Who among

His disciples, or among their proselytes, was capable of inventing the sayings ascribed to

Jesus, or of imagining the life and character in the Gospels? Certainly not the fishermen of

Galilee; as certainly not St. Paul, whose character and idiosyncrasies were of a totally

different sort; still less the early Christian writers. . . .

“ ‘When this pre-eminent genius is combined with the qualities of probably the

greatest moral reformer, and martyr to that mission, who ever existed upon earth, religion

cannot be said to have made a bad choice in pitching on this Man as the ideal representative

and guide to humanity; nor, even now, would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a

better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than to endeavour so

to live that Christ would approve our life.’ “

“Observe,” said the lecturer, “that Mr. Mill, the sceptic, specifically says that an

unbeliever cannot do better than to live so that Christ would approve his life. That is

perilously near to saying that sceptics should be Christians! I agree with him.”

“But,” interrupted Mr. Emerson, “Mill never did make the slightest profession of

Christianity. I am puzzled by his words.”

“I am puzzled, too; but there are his words, and when his sceptical friends

remonstrated with him for writing them, he refused to have them omitted from successive

editions of his book or to take them back. It is not for me to explain the inconsistency of

unbelievers who say the most enthusiastic things about Christ and yet remain avowed

unbelievers.

“All I am endeavouring to show is that the world’s leading sceptics take occasion,

after they have spent years fighting Christianity, to praise Christ and Christianity with the

same verve and vigour one would expect of ardent Christians. And while these two are noted

sceptics, they are not all who have sounded the praises of Christ and Christianity. I shall now

call to the witness stand even more famous unbelievers than these.”

David Dare handed a book to Mr. Emerson. “Please tell the audience who wrote

this,” he said.

Mr. Emerson examined the volume in question, turned to the crowd, and spoke so that

all could hear: “This is titled ‘Journal of Researches,’ and is written by Charles Darwin the

famous evolutionary naturalist.”

“Would you class him as a Christian?” asked Mr. Dare.

“On the contrary, he cared nothing whatever for the Bible,” responded Emerson. “He

was noted as an unbeliever.”

“During the years 1831 to 1836 Darwin circled the globe in the Beagle,” said the

lecturer. “He reported that in New Zealand were the darkest spots found on all his journey.

“After he returned to England, he found vigorous attacks being made against

missionaries and missionary activity. Writing of those making these attacks, he made the

statements Mr. Emerson will now read from pages 414, 425, and 505.”

Mr. Emerson turned to the pages indicated and read:

“ ‘They forget, or will not remember, that human sacrifices and the power of an

idolatrous priesthood — a system of profligacy unparalleled in another part of the world —

infanticide, a consequent of that system — bloody wars, where conquerors spared neither

women nor children — that all these have been abolished; and that dishonesty, intemperance,

and licentiousness have been greatly reduced by Christianity. In a voyager to forget these

things is base ingratitude; for should he chance to be at the point of shipwreck on some

40

unknown coast, he will most devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary may have

reached thus far.’

“ ‘The lesson of the missionary is the enchanter’s wand. the house has been built, the

widows framed, the fields ploughed, and even the trees grafted by the New Zealander.’

“ ‘The march of improvement, consequent on the introduction of Christianity

throughout the south Seas, probably stands by itself in the records of history.’ “

“Why did an avowed unbeliever write in defence of Christian missions after having

expressed his belief that they would utterly fail?” asked the lecturer after Mr. Emerson had

handed the book back and seated himself. “Because he saw in person the indisputable

evidence that his theory was wrong, and he had the honesty and manhood to confess his

mistake. The results of the mission in New Zealand, which excited the surprise and elicited

the eulogy of Darwin, are no different from the effects of Christian missions in every other

part of the earth.

“Since sceptics generally will not concede the Bible to be more than a man-made

book, why have they not given us a book to take its place? Since the majority of unbelievers

think that the human race is constantly progressing — growing better — why don’t they

prove it by producing a better book? But they have not even attempted to do this!

“From the time of Celsus to the present not a single rival has been put out by any

sceptic or by any body of sceptics. There is no one book in all the world of which even one

unbeliever, much less a thousand, will say: ‘This is the wisest of books in all the earth; this is

the Book of books. Here all mankind may come for nurture of mind and elevation of heart

and soul. Let’s translate it into every language of earth, and go with it to every nation,

kindred, tongue, and people, and, with sacrifice of life itself, show them a better way.’ But

sceptics do come very near to saying this of the Bible, as we have seen, and as we shall see

further.

“Sceptics now have numberless printing presses and great schools, and they claim the

greatest scholars. They have immense wealth, boundless leisure, all the advantages of

science. The world has been ransacked from pole to pole, its highest mountains scaled, its

deepest oceans sounded; its telegraph and radio have made immediately available the

knowledge of all nations, and books have made the past accumulations of the whole world

the servant of us all.

“The rocks beneath, the stars above, by use of the microscope, crucible, and telescope

have had many of their secrets wrested from them. Yet, with the advantage of all this two

thousand years’ additional history and experience possessed by modern sceptics over the

writers of the Bible, the sceptics have never even attempted to give us a book they claim to be

better than the Bible. They usually spend the first twenty or more years after their maturity

attacking the Bible, and before ending their lives, devote a few thoughtful pages in refutation

of their previous attacks and in enthusiastic praise of the very Book they had so long

vigorously opposed.

“Thus it came about that Thomas Huxley, after writing many articles against the

Bible, faced the issue, and realizing how important it was that something better be found, if

possible, searched ancient and modern literature with eager eye for such a book. Not finding

it, he pleaded for the use of the Bible in public schools as the source of highest education.

“Mr. Emerson,” suggested Mr. Dare, “I am sure you can tell this audience what

famous word was coined by Huxley.”

“Yes,” answered Mr. Emerson, he coined the word ‘agnostic,’ meaning, ‘one who

does not know; an unbeliever.’ He called himself an agnostic.”

“I am handing you, Mr. Emerson, the Contemporary Review for December, 1870,

which contains an article by Huxley. Please read the passages marked.”

All present listened carefully to these words:

41

“ ‘I have always been strongly in favour of secular education, in the sense of

education without theology; but I must confess that I have been no less seriously perplexed to

know by what practical measures the religious feeling, which is the essential basis of conduct,

was to be kept up, in the present utterly chaotic state of opinion on these matters, without the

use of the Bible. The pagan moralists lack life and colour. . . .Take the bible as a whole;

make the severest deductions which fair criticism can dictate; . . .and there still remains . . . a

vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur.

“ ‘And then consider. . . that, for three centuries, this Book has been woven into the

life of all that is best and noblest in English history; . . . that it is written in the noblest and

purest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of a mere literary form; and finally, that it

forbids the veriest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of the existence of other

countries and other civilizations, and of a great past, stretching to the farthest limits of the

oldest nations in the world.’ “

“And now,” said David Dare, “here is another word by Huxley, from a book entitled

‘Science and Education,’ page 398.”

Mr. Emerson took the book and read clearly:

“ ‘By the study of what other book could children be so much humanized and made to

feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary

space in the interval between two eternities; and earns the blessings or the curses of all time,

according to its effort to do good and hate evil?’ “

He closed the book with a very sober expression on his face.

“Yes, this is the same man who spent several years in a heated debate with Gladstone

over the Bible,” said Mr. Dare. “Huxley later entered his protest against the ‘heterodox

Philistine’ who found in the Bible ‘nothing but a subject for scoffing and an occasion for the

display of his conceited ignorance.’ Then in another book, ‘Essays Upon Controverted

Questions,’ pages 39 and 40, he makes it clear that his opinions as just exhibited to you were

not momentary, but were a settled conviction.” This book the lecturer also handed to Mr.

Emerson. He read:

“ ‘The Bible has been the Magna Charta of the poor and of the oppressed; down to

modern times, no state has had a constitution in which the interests of the people are so

largely taken into account, in which the duties, so much more than the privileges, of rulers are

insisted upon, as that drawn up for Israel; . . . nowhere is the fundamental truth that the

welfare of the state, in the long run, depends on the uprightness of the citizen, so strongly laid

down. . . . I do believe that the human race is not yet, possibly may never be, in a position to

dispense with it [the Bible].’ “

“Now, according to the great unbeliever, Thomas Huxley, the best way to educate

children, to inculcate morals, to aid the poor and oppressed, to instruct rulers and train

citizens, is by means of the bible,” said the lecturer.

“We have found that leading unbelievers, one after another, have frankly turned to the

bible as the only source of moral and religious and practical education. In closing today’s

lecture I shall refer to another great scientist, a contemporary of Darwin and Huxley, and

nearly as well know — George Romanes. He was a pronounced sceptic. Shortly before his

death he wrote some reflections on religion, born of his dissatisfaction with scepticism. He

reviewed the whole field of moral and religious literature, hunting for the best, and at the

close of his book, posthumously published, he sums up his convictions. I desire Mr. Emerson

to read from ‘Thoughts on Religion,’ page 170 and 171.”

Mr. Emerson took the book, fingered it thoughtfully for a minute, and then read:

“ ‘Not only is Christianity thus so immeasurably in advance of all other religions, it is

no less so of every other system of thought that has ever been promulgated, in regard to all

that is moral and spiritual. Whether it be true or false, it is certain that neither philosophy,

42

science, nor poetry has ever produced results in thought, conduct, or beauty in any degree to

be compared with it.’ It is ‘the greatest exhibition of the beautiful, the sublime, and of all

else that appeals to our spiritual nature, which has ever been known upon our earth.’ ‘What

has all the science or all the philosophy of the world done for the thought of mankind to be

compared with the one doctrine, “God is love”?’ “

Mr. Emerson stood as in a daze, looking at the words he had just read. A voice in the

audience shouted, “Read that again.” Others made the same request. So he repeated the

passage, slowly, thoughtfully, almost reverently. As he finished and sat down, the whole

audience was meditatively silent. Finally, David Dare spoke:

“Had these glowing eulogies been written by some famous preacher, you might even

then have expressed surprise at their warmth. But I must confess that I share your

amazement that they are the expressions of world-famous infidels. Now, if the world leaders

in unbelief issue such panegyrics on the bible, Christianity, and Christ, why should any of

you continue in unbelief? When the world’s leading sceptics see in the Bible the most

beneficent power on earth, it is high time we all gave it more careful study.”

Mr. Emerson arose to speak. “I have read these extracts with mingled emotions,” he

said. “I admit that I never imagined these men had said such things. However, influential as

these men are known to have been, they are now dead, and have been dead from sixty to

eighty years. Much has been discovered in the past thirty years to affect the beliefs of

thinkers. I should like to know what leading modern sceptics have said by way of

admissions.”

The applause that followed Mr. Emerson’s words indicated a similar desire on the part

of the audience. The lecturer stepped forward and said:

“Very well. Next week we will consider confessions of leading modern infidels.”

12. CONFESSIONS OF LEADING MODERN INFIDELS

THE EMERSON FAMILY arrived early. “Well,” Remarked George, looking around

the already-crowded lecture hall, “the interest is as great as ever. And dad seems worried.”

Lucile nodded. “I’d be worried, too, if I were in his place. He’s the champion of

what looks to be a losing cause. Here are more than eight hundred adults, at least half of

whom are unbelievers, and all of them together can’t answer the evidence produced by one

man. Mr. Dare is slowly but surely backing them all into a corner.”

“That’s true,” responded Mrs. Emerson.

Mr. Emerson regarded his wife in surprise. “So you think the sceptics’ cause is lost?”

“Don’t you?” she countered. He hesitated.

“Come now, Dad, ‘fess up,” teased Lucile.

“Is my whole family against me?” he smiled. “I’ll answer you some other time, for

Mr. Dare is beckoning me to join him on the platform.”

After a few words of greeting, the lecturer went straight into his subject. “I had

planned to quote from many noted unbelievers of recent times: Carlyle and Blatchford of

England, Goethe and Strauss of Germany, Rousseau and Renan of France, and Tom Paine

and Robert Ingersoll of America. All these, though famous the world over for their

agnosticism, have written words of ardent praise concerning Christ.

“But you ask for the opinions of modern sceptics. You shall have them. Let us turn

to that famous unbelieving radical, H. G. Wells. It is not necessary to identify him for this

43

audience. Will you read, Mr. Emerson, the passages from his pen, marked in this July, 1922,

issue of the American Magazine?”

“With pleasure,” replied Mr. Emerson, as he took the magazine:

“ ‘Jesus of Nazareth . . . is easily the dominant figure in history. I am speaking of

Him, of course, as a man, for I conceive that the historian must treat Him as a man, just as the

painter must paint Him as a man. . . . To assume that he never lived, that the accounts of His

life are inventions, is more difficult and raises more problems in the path of the historian than

to accept the essential elements of the Gospel stories as fact.

“ ‘Of course you and I live in countries where, to millions of men and women, Jesus

is more than a man. But the historian must disregard that fact; he must adhere to the evidence

which would pass unchallenged if his book were to be read in every nation under the sun.’ “

“Notice the limits Wells sets for himself,” interrupted the lecturer. “He speaks solely

as a historian; he accepts only evidence that is unchallenged and that would be accepted by

every nation in the world, and yet observe the amazing conclusions he reaches. Will you

please continue reading, Mr. Emerson?”

“ “Now, it is interesting and significant — isn’t it? that a historian, setting forth in

that spirit, without any theological bias whatever, should find that he simply cannot portray

the progress of humanity honestly without giving the foremost place to a penniless Teacher

from Nazareth.

“ ‘The old Roman historians ignored Jesus entirely; they ignored the growth and

spread of His teaching, regarding it as something apart from life. . . . He left no impress on

the historical records of His time. Yet, more than nineteen hundred years later, a historian

like myself, who does not even call himself a Christian, finds the picture centring irresistibly

around the life and character of this simple, lovable Man. . .

“ ‘We sense the magnetism that induced men who had seen Him only once to leave

their business and follow Him. He filled them with love and courage. Weak and ailing

people were heartened by His presence. He spoke with a knowledge and authority that

baffled the wise and subtle. . . .

“ ‘So the historian, disregarding the theological significance of His life, writes the

name of Jesus of Nazareth at the top of the world’s greatest characters.’ “

“How different are these statements from those one would expect avowed unbelievers

to make,” said David Dare, as Mr. Emerson returned the magazine and sat down. “They are

forced by the stern facts to pay such astounding homage to Christ and Christianity. If even

half of what the sceptics say of Christ and Christianity is true, it is clear that there is nothing

else, no other influence in the whole wide world, that is worthy to be named in the same

breath.

“I could quote in detail from the writings of unbelievers themselves how Christianity

has freed the slave, stopped infanticide as a common public practice, established hospitals,

raised the position of women, brought liberty, and changed the lives of millions for the better.

All these things we may infer from the statements of H. G. Wells. Now, Mr. Emerson, who

would you say has taken the place of Ingersoll, as a leading doubter?”

Mr. Emerson considered a minute. “Well, H. L. Mencken, editor of American

Mercury, and author of a number of very modernly rationalistic, sophisticated books, not only

fills his place, I would say, but has made a definite place of his own. He is certainly much

better educated than Ingersoll, as sneering as Voltaire, and as modern as Bernard Shaw.”

“I have here a book of Mencken’s published in 1930, called ‘Treatise on the Gods.’ I

have marked a number of passages for you to read, if you will,” said David Dare.

Mr. Emerson opened the book to page 227, and read:

“ ‘The historicity of Jesus is no longer questioned seriously by anyone, whether

Christian or unbeliever. The main facts about Him seem to be beyond dispute.’ “

44

“Now turn to page 255,” directed the lecturer.

“ ‘It is not easy to account for His singular and stupendous success. How did it come

about that One who, in His life, had only the bitter cup of contumely to drink, should lift it

Himself, in death, to such vast esteem and circumstance, such incomparable and worldshaking

power and renown?’ “

“Now, according to Mencken,” said Dare, “Jesus has power to shake the earth, and he

admits frankly that he cannot account for His having this power. But that is not all. Please

read pages 266 and 267.”

“ ‘Unless the whole New Testament is to be rejected as moonshine, it seems to be

certain that many persons saw Him after His supposed death on the cross, including not a few

who were violently disinclined to believe in His resurrection. . . . Upon that theory . . . the

most civilized section of the human race has erected a strange structure of ideas and practices

so vast in scope and so powerful in effect that the whole range of history showeth nothing

parallel.’ “

“Mencken has a violent dislike for the Jews, and expresses it vigorously,” the lecturer

went on to say. “I mention this because I do not agree with him, and also to show that he

makes his own case more difficult by this attitude. The mystery of how the Jews could

produce such literature as the Bible amazes us no less than it amazes Mencken. Now read

pages 345, 346, and 347, please.”

“ ‘The Bible is unquestionably the most beautiful book in the world.’ “

“Just a minute, Mr. Emerson,” interrupted Mr. Dare. “To hear sceptics talk on the

street corner and to hear them arguing with ministers, you would think the Bible the most

revolting Book in the world. But here is America’s most noted modern agnostic telling us

that without any question the Bible is the most beautiful Book in the world. This is an

admission that sceptics can show nothing to compare with. But read on.”

“ ‘Allow everything you please, . . . no other literature, old or new, can offer a match

for it.

“ ‘Nearly all of it comes from the Jews, and their making of it constitutes one of the

most astounding phenomena in human history. For there is little in their character, as the

modern world knows them, to suggest a talent for noble thinking. . . .

The Jews could be put down very plausibly as the most unpleasant race ever heard of. As

commonly encountered, they lack many of the quantities that mark the civilized man:

courage, dignity, incorruptibility, ease, confidence. They have vanity without pride, . . . and

learning without wisdom. . . .

“ ‘Yet these same Jews, from time immemorial, have been the chief dreamers of that

race, and beyond all comparison, its greatest poets. It was Jews who wrote the magnificent

poems called the Psalms, the Song of Solomon, and the books of Job and Ruth; it was Jews

who set platitudes to deathless music in Proverbs; and it was Jews who gave us the

beatitudes, the sermon on the mount, the incomparable ballad of the Christ Child, and the

twelfth chapter of Romans.

“ ‘I incline to believe that the scene recounted in John 8:3-11 is the most poignant

drama ever written in the world, as the Song of Solomon is unquestionably the most moving

love song, and the twenty-third psalm the greatest of hymns.

“ ‘All these transcendent riches Christianity inherits from a tribe of sedentary

Bedouins, so obscure and unimportant that secular history scarcely knows them. No heritage

of modern man is richer and none has made a more brilliant mark upon human thought, not

even the legacy of the Greeks. . . .

“ ‘The story of Jesus . . . is touching beyond compare. It is indeed the most lovely

story . . . ever devised. . . . Beside it the best that you will find in sacred literature of Moslem

and Brahman, Parsee and Buddhist, seems flat, stale, and unprofitable.’ “

45

As Mr. Emerson returned the book and sat down, the lecturer stepped to the edge of

the platform and spoke:

“There is much more from these agnostic writers. Wells and Mencken, that I would

like to quote. But these extracts serve to show that these ultramodern sceptics admit that

Jesus is the most powerful force in all the world.”

“But,” interrupted Mr. Emerson, “why is it that while it is true unbelievers make such

statements, they still do not become Christians? If they put any great store by the views you

have had me read, why haven’t they ceased their scepticism and become Christians?”

Murmured applause followed his questions. David Dare turned smiling to Mr.

Emerson, then back to the audience:

“A very good question, and perfectly proper and logical. It is not my place to say

why Wells, Mencken, Lecky, Mill, and others whom I have quoted, have still, in the face of

these admissions, called themselves sceptics. But it is a fact that a large number who were

unbelievers have left their scepticism and become ardent, professing believers. Next week it

will be our privilege to consider some of them.”

13. CONVERTED SCEPTICS

THE EMERSON FAMILY had comfortably seated themselves and greeted a few

friends, but it was not quite time for the lecture to begin.

“I can’t help admiring the workmanlike way in which David Dare has gone about his

task,” observed Lucile. “Instead of simply saying that many prophecies cannot be denied or

explained away by unbelievers, he produces them and invites the unbeliever to do his worst.

And, frankly, so far the unbeliever hasn’t done very much.”

“That’s a fact,” agreed her brother. “And instead of saying sceptics admit Christ to be

the greatest character of all time, he has dad on the platform reading it out of the sceptic’s

very own books. I call that a clever move. I wonder who the converted infidels are he

promised to tell us about tonight.”

“You may be sure,” said Mrs. Emerson, “that they are more than ordinary

unbelievers.”

“I agree with you all,” said Mr. Emerson, smiling. “Mr. Dare is handling this whole

discussion in a most original and pleasing manner. He has indulged in no cheap sarcasm, has

given every speaker a fair, courteous hearing, and has answered all questions in a clear,

convincing manner. And — but there he goes to the platform.”

The lecturer nodded to several with whom he had become acquainted, among them

the Emerson’s, and began:

“Two infidels once sat in a railway car discussing Christ’s wonderful life. One of

them said, ‘I think an interesting romance could be written about Christ.’

“The other replied, ‘You are right; and you are just the man to write it. Set forth the

correct view of His life and character. Tear down the prevailing sentiment as to His divinity,

and paint Him as He was — a mere man among men.’

“The suggestion was acted on, and years later the romance appeared. The man who

made the suggestion was Colonel Robert Ingersoll, the world-famous infidel; the author was

General Lew Wallace; and the book was ‘Ben Hur.’

“In studying his sources — the Gospels — for material to write the romance, General

Wallace found himself facing the unaccountable Man Jesus. The more he studies Christ’s

life and character, the more profoundly he was convinced that He was more than a man

among men.

46

“He was amazed by the fact that out of an obscure Galilean village, so mean and low

that its very name was a reproach, came this young man, versed in neither Greek nor Hebrew

— a young carpenter who had hardly been outside His province, but whose first public

utterance, the Sermon on the Mount, is the most original and revolutionary address on

practical morals the world has ever heard.

“Lew Wallace, like the rest of the world, wondered at His words. Age has not

dimmed their light, lessened their appealing sweetness, or diminished their force. Familiarity

has not spoiled their freshness or destroyed their fragrance. His words shine out peerless as

ever, the sweetest, calmest, wisest words ever spoken to men.

“Lew Wallace discovered Christ to be the person that literature feels to be its loftiest

ideal, philosophy its highest personality, criticism its supreme problem, theology its

fundamental doctrine, religion its cardinal necessity, and man his closest Friend.

“He found Christ to be the great central fact in the world’s history. To Him

everything looks forward or backward; all lines of history converge in Him and radiate from

Him. At last, unable to resist the evidence, Lew Wallace, the infidel friend of the infidel

Ingersoll, was constrained to cry, like the centurion under the cross, ‘Truly this was the Son

of God.’ So in the writing of ‘Ben Hur,’ a book that was to exhibit Christ merely as a human

man, Lew Wallace was converted, and painted Him as the Son of God.

“About ten years ago Europe was thunderstruck by a book about Christ. The author

had been noted as a most rabid atheist. He says that he ‘affronted Christ as few men before

him have ever done.’ He wrote sneering books, letting his ‘mad and voluble humour run wild

along all the roads of paradox’ and ‘negation’ to arrive at ‘perfect atheism.’

“He went on to say that he did not turn to Christ ‘out of weariness, because his return

to Christ made life become more difficult and responsibilities heavier to bear; not through the

fears of old age, for he could still call himself a young man [he was forty]; and not through

desire for worldly fame, because as things go nowadays he would receive more

commendation if he continued in his old ideas.’ In short, after one has written books

attacking Christ and Christianity, and is noted as a leader of infidels, it is indeed hard to turn

around and confess he has been mistaken.

“But this is what Giovanni Papini, the renowned and self-proclaimed atheist, did. His

‘Life of Christ’ so amazed the world that it has been translated into all the modern languages.

I read it with tingling delight.”

Mr. Emerson stood and obtained recognition. “I have not interrupted, because I

desired to hear your stories of ‘converted infidels’ fairly complete. But these men never left

their own countries to investigate. They merely read the Bible, a few histories, and changed

their minds. Although it is evidence that unbelievers do become believers — which we knew

before — it is hardly convincing.”

“You admit that Lew Wallace, Papini, and others changed their views after reading

the Bible and a few histories,” replied Dare. “Well, few sceptics bother to make that much

research, and not one in a thousand ever reads the evidence on both sides. But I will now tell

you about an unbeliever who electrified the doubting as well as the Christian world by

announcing that he was going to demonstrate that the Bible could not be true.

“Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, in 1881, was a young man of sterling integrity,

unimpeachable character, culture, and high education. He had a sincere desire to know the

truth. He had been educated in an atmosphere of doubt, which early brought him to the

conviction that the Bible was fraudulent.

“He had spent years deliberately preparing himself for the announced task of heading

an exploration expedition into Asia Minor and Palestine, the home of the Bible, where he

would ‘dig up the evidence’ that the Book was the product of ambitious monks, and not the

Book from heaven it claims to be. He regarded the weakest spot in the whole New Testament

47

to be the story of Paul’s travels. These had never been thoroughly investigated by one on the

spot. So he announced his plan to take the Book of Acts as a guide, and by trying to make

the same journeys Paul made over the same routes that Paul followed, prove that the apostle

could never have made them as described.

“The enemies of the Bible were enthusiastic over what they were confident would

prove a complete and final refutation of the Book; and it must be admitted that some

believers trembled at the prospect. For this was the boldest attempt to disprove the Bible

since the days that Julian, the emperor of Rome in the fourth century, set himself with his

wealth to annihilate belief in the Bible by deliberately breaking its prophecies — a project

that miserably failed, as Gibbon the infidel historian admits.

“The factor that made the Ramsay expedition unique was the confidence that its

leader inspired from opposing camps. Here was a man who was not a boisterous blasphemer,

content to sit in Paris, London, or Berlin, and from these remote points assail a book that had

its origin and setting in ancient Palestine. He had the courage of his convictions and the

intellect and physical equipment to carry out his purpose to make investigation. So all parties

believed in Ramsay, and when he said he would publish his findings just as he discovered

things to be, his word was accepted.

“Equipped as no other man had been, he went to the home of the Bible. Here he spent

fifteen years literally ‘digging for the evidence.’ Then in 1896 he published a large volume

on ‘St. Paul, the Traveller and the Roman Citizen.’

“The book caused a furore of dismay among the sceptics of the world. Its attitude

was utterly unexpected, because it was contrary to the announced intention of the author

years before. The chagrin and confusion increased, as for twenty years more, book after book

from the same author came from the press, each filled with additional evidence of the exact,

minute truthfulness of the whole New Testament as tested by the spade on the spot. The

evidence was so overwhelming that many infidels announced their repudiation of their former

unbelief and accepted Christianity. And these books have stood the test of time, not one

having been refuted, not have I found even any attempt to refute them.

“Quotations cannot do justice to forty years’ exploration and writing, but I cannot

refrain from a few extracts. Speaking of the Book of Acts, Ramsay, on page 238 of his ‘St.

Paul,’ says:

“ ‘The narrative never makes a false step amid all the many details, as the scene

changes from city to city.’ And on page 240: ‘Every minute fact stated in Acts has its own

significance.’

“ ‘The characterization of Paul in Acts,’ says Ramsay on pages 21, 22, ‘is so detailed

and individualized as to prove the author’s personal acquaintance. Moreover, the Paul of

Acts is the Paul that appears to us in his own letters, in his ways and his thoughts, in his

educated tone of polished courtesy, in his quick and vehement temper, in the extraordinary

versatility and adaptability that made him at home in every society, moving at ease in all

surroundings, and everywhere the centre of interest, whether he is the Socratic dialectician in

the agora of Athens, or the rhetorician in its university, or conversing with kings and

proconsuls, or advising in the council on shipboard, or cheering a broken-spirited crew to

make one more effort for life. Wherever Paul is, no one present has eyes for any but him.’

“Turn now to one of his later books, ‘The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the

Trustworthiness of the New Testament,’ published in 1914. In the introduction, page v, he

says: ‘My aim. . . is to show through the examination, word by word and phrase by phrase, of

a few passages which have been exposed to hostile criticism, that the New Testament is

unique in the compactness, the lucidity, the pregnancy, and the vivid truthfulness of its

expression. That it is not the character of one or two only of the books that compose the New

Testament; it belongs in different ways to all alike.’

48

“ ‘From Strauss to Schmiedel, what a series of distinguished and famous scholars

have blindly assumed that their inability to estimate evidence correctly was the final and sure

criterion of truth.’ — Page 262.

“ ‘Such progress as the present writer has been enabled to make in discovery is

largely due to the early appreciation of the fact that Luke is a safe guide.’ (Page 259).

‘Wherever the present writer followed Luke’s authority absolutely, . . . he was right down to

the last detail.’ — Page 262.

“And so it happened that Sir William Ramsay, who set out to destroy belief in the

Bible, has done more than any other one man in modern times to establish, to demonstrate

beyond possibility of cavil, the absolute, minute trustworthiness and truth of the New

Testament.

“Also I would like to tell you of Adolf Deissmann, the great young German scholar

whose findings rank second only to those of Ramsay. He began his investigation in mood

similar to Ramsay’s. After years of exploration he arrived, as had Ramsay, at a settled belief

in the very Bible he had expected to disprove. Deissmann’s ‘Light From the Ancient East’ is

the most revolutionary book on the Bible of this century as Ramsay’s was of the last century.

Together these two men, who set out as doubters determined to explore and prove for

themselves the unreliability of the Bible, have erected an indestructible Gibraltar of evidence

in its favour. Until the evidence of these two men has been overcome, the cause of unbelief

is lost.

“This subject has only been touched; and now I must close. But I commend to you

the thrill of joy you will certainly experience if you follow these men in their fascinating

adventures of exploration in Bible lands and truths.

“Next week we will consider what the sceptic has to offer us.”

14. WHAT HAS THE SCEPTIC TO OFFER?

AS THE EMERSON family waited for the crowd to gather, Mr. Emerson looked

frankly worried. Lucile leaned over and lightly passed her hand across her father’s brow.

“Why the deep furrows of thought, Dad? They’ll mar your style of beauty,” she said

teasingly.

“I am worried,” he admitted.

“What about?”

“I’m unsettled, entirely at sea. I was certain my favourite objections would be

unanswerable. But Mr. Dare has answered most of them, and has presented a number of

insuperable arguments for Christianity.”

“Why haven’t you had your sceptical friends help you?” asked George.

“I have put Mr. Dare’s arguments to them, and they are unable to reply. No one here

has been able to answer them. And now he is going to come right into our citadel and attack

our defences. And I know that we are almost defenceless. Our strength is in attack.”

“Then why not attack?” asked Lucile, eyes alight with hope for a contest.

“Because I have already brought forward my best arguments, and they have been

answered.”

“Why, Dad!” exclaimed Lucile and George in open-mouthed astonishment, “what has

happened?”

“I don’t know yet,” he smiled.

49

“I do,” said Mrs. Emerson, also smiling. They turned to her for explanation, but

checked their questions when they saw the lecturer mounting the platform.

“It is with reluctance that I approach this subject,” said David Dare. “I do not relish

attacking the beliefs of another; I should much rather present the affirmative side of

Christianity. But I really see no escape from considering what the unbeliever offers us when

he endeavours to destroy Christianity. Since he sets himself up as having something superior

to Christianity — or he would not try to destroy it — we must carefully examine what he

proposes in its place, and weigh it thoughtfully.”

Mr. Emerson arose, and turning to the audience spoke: “I know we are all pleased

with this very courteous attitude of the speaker, and I for one assure him that he need have no

hesitation in speaking his mind.”

Hearty applause followed Mr. Emerson’s words.

“Thank you,” smiled the lecturer in recognition of this expression of friendliness.

“You all know that Robert Ingersoll, the renowned sceptic, had a brother whom he dearly

loved. Standing by the side of his brother’s grave, Robert preached the funeral sermon,

uttering in the course of his remarks what has been admired all over the world by his brother

sceptics, as the acme of his genius.

“In the face of the majesty of death, in the presence of the unknown, the veil of the

sceptic’s mind was torn aside, his suffering soul laid bare, and there were wrung from his

blanched lips these famous words that have circled the earth:

“ ‘Whether in mid-sea or among the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck must mark

at last the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and

every moment jewelled with joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy, as sad, and deep, and

dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. . . . Life is a narrow vale

between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the

heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry.’

‘To me, sadder words were never uttered. Life, to Ingersoll, after he had plumbed its

depths and scaled its heights, was only a cold and barren tragedy, its highest aspirations but a

hideous mockery. He faced ‘the blackness of darkness for ever,’ as Jude 13 has it.

“Whatever else scepticism is, it is not and cannot be the truth. It does not even

profess to be a truth. It is admittedly only a negation, a putting out of the candles of others

without lighting any in their place.

“Let us now turn to another great unbeliever, Herbert Spencer. After having written a

score of volumes, in all of which he either attacked or ignored Christianity, he sat down at the

close of a long life to write his autobiography in two large volumes. Near the end of the

second volume he talks of death, and writes with evident horror of his own end. He goes on

to lament the fact that in death ‘there lapses both the consciousness of existence and the

consciousness of having existed.’ In other words, one cannot be ‘consciously dead,’ as

Lecky puts it in his ‘Map of Life.’

“In fact, Herbert Spencer so yearned for rest for his soul that immediately following

his words about death he goes on to say: ‘Thus religious creeds, which in one way or the

other occupy the sphere that rational interpretation seeks to occupy and fails, and fails the

more it seeks, I have come to regard with a sympathy based on community of need, feeling

that dissent from them results from inability to accept the solutions offered, joined with the

wish that solutions could be found.’ — ‘Autobiography,’ Volume 2, page 549.

“A number of important conclusions follow:

“First, Spencer knew his own solutions had failed, that they were not solutions. He

says so. For fifty years he had used his giant mind in an endeavour to solve the riddles of

existence apart from the Bible. At the end of his life he admits how utterly futile have been

his efforts.

50

“Second, the more scepticism tried to occupy the field of religion and account for

existence apart from religion, the more it failed.

“Third, he so keenly realized his need of a solution that he abandoned his own and all

other sceptical explanations, and sought for solutions in Christianity. Though he did not

accept the Christian solution, he admitted it is the best offered.

“Fourth, his own active antagonism changed at last to a sympathy with Christianity

before his death, and he actually voiced a wish that he might be a Christian. If his words do

not mean all this, then words have no meaning.

“Now why should we discard the Christianity which he regarded with such sympathy

and desire, and embrace what he threw away?

“But let us come to the present. In the American Magazine for November, 1930,

beginning on page 23, is an article by a noted writer, W. O. Saunders. Let us listen to him:

“ ‘I would have you meet one of the lonesomest and most unhappy individuals on

earth. . . . I am talking about the man who doesn’t believe in God. . . . I am not asking you to

meet the man who denies there is a God — the atheist; I am asking you to meet that wistful,

pathetic, and lonely fellow who simply says he does not know — the agnostic, the man who

has no God. Some call him an infidel. . . .

“ ‘I am peculiarly qualified to introduce the agnostic. I am an agnostic myself. Out

of my own life, my own heart, and my own mind I write this. In introducing myself, you will

have an introduction to the agnostic in your own neighbourhood, for he is everywhere in the

land.

“ ‘Probably you will be surprised to know that the agnostic envies you your faith in

God, your settled belief in a heaven after death, and your blessed assurance that you will meet

with your loved ones in an afterlife in which there will be neither sorrow nor pain. He would

give anything to be able to embrace that faith and be comforted by it.

“ ‘For him there is only the grave and the persistence of matter. All he can see

beyond the grave is the disintegration of the protoplasm and psychoplasm of which his body

and its personality are composed. . . .

“ ‘But in this material view I find no ecstacy nor happiness. Is this the end and all of

human life and endeavour? . . . Therefore would I try to convey to your mind and heart

something of the wistful and loneliness of the man who does not believe in God.

“ ‘Your agnostic may put on a brave front and face life with heroic smiles. But he is

not happy. . . . Standing in awe and reverence before the vastness and majesty of the universe,

knowing not whence he came nor why, appalled by the stupendousness of space and the

infinitude of time, humiliated by the infinite smallness of himself, cognizent of his frailty, his

weakness and brevity, think you not that he, too, sometimes yearns for a staff on which to

lean? He, too, carries a cross. . . .

“ ‘Your agnostic . . . is . . . tremendously impressed by the power of your faith. He

has seen drunkards and libertines and moral degenerates transfigured by it. He has seen the

sick, the aged, and the friendless comforted and sustained by it. And he is impressed by your

wonderful charities, your asylums, your hospitals, your nurseries, your schools. . . . He must

shamefacedly admit that agnostics, as such, have built few hospitals and few homes for

orphans. . . .

“ ‘To him this earth is but a tricky raft upon the unfathomable waters of eternity, with

no horizon in sight. His heart aches for every precious life on the raft, drifting, drifting,

drifting, whither no one for a certainty knows. . . .

“ ‘You have met one of the lonesomest and most unhappy individuals on earth.’

“What, then, has the infidel to offer? Nothing; nothing at all. He says so. He is

wistfully envious of the Christian. He is lonesome and unhappy. Then what has he to offer

the Christian? Nothing but his own unhappiness and lonesomeness.”

51

“But Mr. Dare,” interrupted Mr. Emerson, “the agnostic cannot accept Christianity,

because so much has to be taken on faith, contrary to what he sees as natural law. He cannot

order his life by faith; he must govern himself according to facts. The reason the agnostic has

nothing to offer is that he knows nothing about the afterlife, and to act on faith alone is

absurd.”

“On the contrary,” smiled Mr. Dare, “that is exactly what you do, and what every

human being does.”

“I don’t understand,” said Mr. Emerson, in a puzzled tone. “I wish you would

explain.”

“Gladly. All mankind, educated and ignorant, artists and scientists, idealists and

materialists, believe in things they have never seen and cannot prove. Mathematicians

believe in axioms; chemists, in atoms, cosmic ether, and contradictory attributes in bodies;

astronomers, in the incomprehensible infinity of space; natural scientists, in invisible natural

forces and natural laws. For our own peace of mind we lay down the law that bodies have

eternally attracted each other and that they will eternally do so; but we know nothing about it

and can prove nothing of the kind.

“According to the great scientist, Thomas Huxley, even science is largely a matter of

faith. In his book, ‘Evolution and Ethics,’ page 121, he says: ‘If there is anything in the

world I do firmly believe in, it is the universal validity of the law of causation; but that

universality cannot be proved by any amount of experience.’ And then in his ‘Science and

Christian Tradition,’ page 243, he says further: ‘The ground of every one of our actions, and

the validity of all our reasonings, rest upon the great act of faith.’

“The knowledge of infidels is only faith resting on dogmas concerning existence, the

forces of nature, matter, atoms, mechanics. Everyone, Christian and infidel alike, lives by

faith.

“It is amusing to find that the very man who derides miracles believes in the self

creation of the world — to hear the man who mocks at the creation of the world by God

speak learnedly of unconscious matter producing consciousness, of a primal cell that created

itself! He denies the soul of man, but maintains the soul of atoms and believes in the

unconscious memory of molecules! He maintains the self-beginning of life, and denies the

possibility of Creation!

“The sceptic has nothing but a wail of despair and a sob of loneliness to offer the

groping seeker for help. The infidel finds it easier to spend his time criticizing the Bible and

Christians than in providing aid for helpless humanity. But the very sceptics who smile at

our faith admit that they live by faith. The very sceptics who tell us we are foolish to believe

in Christ admit they envy us our belief in Him. The very sceptics who so vigorously advise

us to give up our Christianity admit they have nothing whatever to take its place, and would

give anything if they could have the comfort and happiness such a belief gives.

“So next week, in out last lecture, we will consider what Christianity has to offer.”

15. WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS TO OFFER

CONVERSION OF THE EMERSONS

THE CROWN GATHERED early for the last meeting of the series. The buzz of

conversation indicated the intense interest. Small groups in different parts of the hall were

engaged in lively discussion.

52

Lucile’s eyes were bright with excitement. “I wonder if anything is going to happen,”

she remarked to her father.

“A great deal is going to happen, my dear, but not what you seem to expect. There

will be no controversy tonight.”

“Why not, and what will happen?”

“There will be no controversy, because all important points of controversy have been

covered, and the subject tonight is too vital to all of us for thoughtless interruptions.”

“But what will happen?” she persisted.

“I cannot be sure,” Mr. Emerson smiled as he observed her earnestness, “but I expect

decisions to be made that will affect the whole life of many present.”

Lucile turned to face her father squarely, while George and Mrs. Emerson watched in

breathless interest. A new seriousness was in Lucile’s voice as she asked:

“Have you made your decision, Dad?”

“Not yet, but I expect to do so. I want to hear first what Christianity has to offer.

Have you decided?”

“Yes, I have, Dad. I hope you don’t object.”

“You know I don’t. And you George?” George merely nodded his head solemnly in

the affirmative. “And you, wife?” Mrs. Emerson, with an appealing look in her soft brown

eyes, answered quietly, firmly:

“Yes; I have always felt a yearning to be a Christian.”

Suddenly the hall was quiet, for the speaker and the chairman were going to the

platform. David Dare, as he arose to speak, was received by a subdued but apparently

unanimous applause.

“What has Christianity to offer you?” he began, “You have heard the very frank

admissions of leading sceptics that scepticism has literally nothing whatever except blank

despair and soul-terrifying loneliness for the unbeliever. You have listened to the wistful

yearnings uttered by these sceptics.

“You have seen how the Bible foretells, even down to the end of time, the history of

all the leading nations of the ancient world. Not one of you present, nor anyone else for that

matter, has been able to deny that these prophecies were made centuries before their

fulfilment; and no one can account for them on natural grounds. It is admitted by all of you

that no other book in the world contains real prophecies. The prophecies of the Bible present

an unexplainable mystery to the unbeliever.

“Christianity has Christ to offer you. This, according to the testimony of nearly a

score of leading infidels, whose words were read here, is the greatest fact in the history of the

world. They waxed more enthusiastic over Him than over anyone else in the world. And

finally some leading unbelievers publicly renounced their unbelief and admitted joyously

their belief in Christ.

“Let us consider what Christ means to the human race, and therefore, to you

personally. As the direct result of Jesus’ story of the good Samaritan, and His other teachings

of mercy, and His own personal tender care for the sick, the horrible practice of exposure and

neglect of the sick and maimed is now, and has long been, a thing of the past. Care of the

sick or injured in hospitals and sanitariums — humane treatment of disease — is now the rule

wherever the Bible has gone.

“Are you a social reformer and interested in the poor? Then consider how the poor

have been uplifted by Him. Slavery has been abolished by the teaching of Jesus that all men

are of one blood, and brothers in the sight of God. Jesus offers comfort to the oppressed and

boldly arraigns the selfish rich. He calls not for the palliatives of charity, but for fundamental

social justice for all.

53

“Do you believe that education is a fundamental in the progress of humanity? Then

observe that knowledge has been promoted by Him. Jesus sought to make men whole in

mind as well as in body. When Jesus said, ‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,’ He

released, He impelled, the greatest forces directed into the world. There are almost infinite

implications in that command. It directs all Christians to scan the history of nations, so as to

apply the gospel to every phase or relationship of life.

“To this end, methods of navigation had to be studied and perfected in order to reach

all nations, as commanded. This command has unloosed untold energies of men in every age,

sending them into the depths of the earth and upon wings above the clouds; to the burning

sands of the Sahara, to the chill and solitudes of the arctic, and to the great unknown

fastnesses of Tibet. Why? — that the great commission may be carried out.

“The command to teach all nations meant that the teacher must know more than the

learner. So under the missionary urge of Jesus’ words, more than nine hundred languages

have been reduced to writing, and all kinds of practical as well as religious books have been

translated into them by the missionary. In fact, the geographical knowledge of our globe has

come largely from the missionaries who have ventured where the foot of the trader dared not

tread.

“The race from which Jesus came was the most hated and the most persecuted in the

world, and the most bigoted and provincial. Yet He became the one universal Man, uniting

Orient and Occident, appealing equally to the East and to the West.

“Socrates taught for forty years, Plato for fifty, Aristotle for forty, and Jesus for only

three; yet those three years infinitely transcend in influence the combined one hundred and

thirty years that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the three greatest men of all antiquity, taught.

“Jesus was not a writer, yet He is quoted more than any writer in history, and His

words have winged their way to earth’s remotest bounds, and have been translated into all

languages and nearly all dialects.

“So far as we know, the Carpenter of Nazareth drew no architectural plans, yet the

world’s masterpieces of architecture have been reared in His praise.

“He painted no pictures, yet the paintings of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da

Vinci received their inspiration from Him.

“He wrote no poetry, but Dante, Milton, and scores of the world’s greatest poets were

inspired by Him.

“He composed no music, still Haydn, Handel, Beethoven, Bach, and Mendelssohn

reached their highest perfection of melody in the hymns, symphonies, and oratorios written in

His praise.

“Jesus was highly social, yet He possessed a reserve that discouraged all familiarity.

His temperance never led to bigotry or austerity. He was not conformed to the world, yet He

was attentive to the needs and sufferings of all men.

“Sceptics praise the clearness of His judgments, the depth of His ethics, the justness

of His decisions, the weight of His words, the faultless beauty of His glorious life — its

balance, its pure nobility, and its serene power.

“You never exhaust Christ’s words. They pass into proverbs, they are enacted into

laws, they are consolidated into doctrines, they become consolation for the poor and weary,

they grow into the life and transform the character; but they never pass away, and after all the

use made of them, they are still as fresh as when first spoken.

“Christ’s words have the charm of antiquity with the freshness of today, the simplicity

of a child with the wisdom of God, the softness of kisses from the lips of love, and the force

of lightning rending mountains.

“The most determined criticism has not been able to dethrone Christ as the

incarnation of perfect holiness. The waves of a tossing and restless sea of unbelief break at

54

His feet, but still He stands the supreme model, the inspiration of great deeds, the rest for the

weary, the fragrance of all the world, the one divine flower in the garden of the world.

“Sceptics quite freely admit these things and attempt to account for Christ on natural

grounds. They are very willing to admit Him to be the greatest man that ever lived, but at

any hint of actual deity in combination with His humanity, they arise in determined protest

and violent rejection of such a suggestion.

“However, by calling Christ a superman they have by no means solved the difficulty.

On the contrary, they have created more difficulties than they had before. For if Christ is not

in a real sense God as well as man, He must be the world’s greatest deceiver, for He claimed

that worship was due Him, that He was the light of the world, that He pre-existed, that He

descended from heaven, that He was equal with God (John 5:17, 18), ‘that all men should

honour the Son, even as they honour the Father.’ John 5:23; see also John 10:30, 38. Jesus

accepted the title of ‘the Lord thy God.’ Matthew 4:7; John 10:33. When Thomas, the

sceptic, after Jesus’ resurrection, called Him ‘my Lord and my God,’ Jesus did not rebuke

him but on the contrary said unto him, ‘Because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed:

blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.’ John 20:28, 29. There is much

more written, all to the same effect, in all four Gospels.

“To have made the claims He made, if none of them were true, would necessarily

brand Him as the most unprincipled deceiver in all history. Yet there is not a sceptic who

will admit He was anything of the kind. You all, equally with me, believe that Christ was

honest and earnest, for you know that a bad man could not have taught such great truths as

He taught, and that a good man could not have deceived the people for whom He gave His

life.

“Thus at once the greatest difficulty in the Bible and the weightiest proof of its

inspiration is Christ. He stands out commandingly among all the sons of men, unapproached

and unapproachable. He walks down the ages with the tread of a conqueror, while around

Him shines a moral splendour that has compelled even the most hostile criticism to bow the

head in hushed reverence. Upon the impregnable Rock of Ages all criticisms are baffled and

shattered. Christ is, as He prophesied He would be, the spiritual magnet that draws all men

everywhere to Himself.

“From heaven, with the accumulated love of eternity in His heart, came this King of

kings, to be one with humanity, to suffer the vilest mockery to endure the strongest

temptations, to experience the lowest of deaths, that you and I might know what love is, and

might be restored to Edenic innocence and happiness. Around Him all truth clusters and

revolves, as do the planets about the sun.

“And now will you pardon me a personal testimony?

“I was reared an infidel. My parents and other immediate relatives were proud of

their unbelief. I was nourished on the vaunting sceptics of the ages.

“But I observed the futile amazement with which every sceptic from Celsus to Wells

stood around the cradle of the Christ. I wondered why this helpless Babe was thrust into the

world at a time when Roman greed, Jewish hate, and Greek subtlety would combine to crush

Him. And yet this most powerful, devastating combination ever known in history served

only to advance the cause of the Infant who was born in a stable — the purest human being

born in the filthiest place in the world.

“I marvelled that this poverty-stricken and uneducated plebeian, who exercised no

authority, commanded no army, held no office, received no honours, wrote no books, and

who died in early manhood the most contemptible of deaths, a malefactor on a cross between

two criminals — I marvelled that His name is yet the most esteemed name on earth, even

among the sceptics themselves.

55

“No unbeliever could tell me why His words are as charged with power today as they

were nineteen hundred years ago. Not could scoffers explain how those pierced hands pulled

human monsters with gnarled souls out of a hell of iniquity and overnight transformed them

into steadfast, glorious heroes who died in torturing flames, that others might know the love

and mighty power of the Christ who had given peace to their souls.

“No agnostic could make clear why seemingly immortal empires pass into oblivion,

while the glory and power of the murdered Galilean are gathering beauty and momentum

with every attack and every age.

“Nor could any scoffer explain, as Jesus Himself so daringly foretold, why by

telephone, aeroplane, and radio, by rail, horse, and foot, His words are piercing the densest

forest, scaling the highest mountains, crossing the deepest seas and the wildest deserts.

making converts in every nation, kindred, tongue, and people on earth.

“No doubter could tell me how this isolated Jew could utter words at once so simple

that a child can understand them and so deep that the greatest thinkers cannot plumb their

shining depths. The life, the words, the character of this strange Man are the enigma of

history. Any naturalistic explanation makes Him a more puzzling paradox, a fathomless

mystery.

“But I learned that the paradox was plain and the mystery solved when I accepted

Him for what He claimed to be — the Son of God, come from heaven a Saviour of men, but

above all, my own Saviour. I learned to thrill at the angel’s words: ‘Behold, . . .unto you is

born this day . . . a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.’ Now I have learned a great truth that

“ ‘Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born,

If He’s not born in thee, thy soul is still forlorn.’

“This, then, is what Christianity has to offer: A perfect Model, forgiveness of sins,

rest to the soul, a Comforter, a Companion, a Saviour, and then eternal life in communion

with myriads of perfect beings. Contrast this with the bewailing despair, the glum

hopelessness, the wearing heartache, that is ever the lot of the unbeliever. Which will you

choose? The choice is yours, the opportunity now. You have had weeks to weigh the

evidence, to feel the thrill of joy in contemplating the Christ. He asks to enter your heart and

bring His peace that follows His forgiveness of sins.”

Then pausing a moment, his earnest eyes searching the faces of that solemn audience,

he said:

“Those who desire to abandon their unbelief and publicly proclaim their acceptance of

Jesus as the divine Son of God, their Saviour from sin; those who were formerly sceptics and

who desire to be known henceforth as Christians, followers of the Christ, please stand.”

More than a hundred rose instantly to their feet. David Dare’s eyes turned

instinctively to the section where the Emerson family usually sat. His eyes lighted with

pleasure when he saw all four of the Emersons standing.

“Mr. Emerson,” he said, “I am happy to see you and your family give this testimony.

Will it embarrass you to tell the audience briefly why you have taken this stand?”

“I shall be only too glad to do so.” Mr. Emerson’s voice was clear, and thrilled with

joy as he spoke. “While you have been carrying on these lectures, I have been reading the

Bible through. Many things I thought the Bible said, I found it did not teach at all, and many

cavils I thought objections, I found vanished before a candid study. Then when I read the

New Testament, I found in Jesus peace and contentment for the first time in my life. The

terrifying feeling that I was alone in a vast universe, left to grope my way in an infinitude,

gave way to one of perfect trust when I grasped the hand of Jesus, the One who created all

these things.

“The knowledge that my wrongs, my mistakes, my sins, no matter what they are, have

been forgiven, is the most wonderful thrill in all the world. The dread with which I looked

56

forward to my remaining years has turned to a fountain of joy and praise to the Jesus for

whom I have always had a high regard, but whom I now trust as my own Friend and

Saviour.”

David Dare then asked all who were standing to come forward to meet him and make

arrangements for uniting with the church, so that they might have a part in the organized

work of giving to all the world “this gospel of the kingdom.” Among the first to reach him

were Mr. Emerson; Mrs. Emerson, in quiet content; George, in whose soul had been born a

new ambition to serve; and Lucile, the once pert, thoughtless girl, now chastened with a new

beauty of soul.

——————————————————————–

This Book is Published

with the hope that it will turn the heart of the

reader to full belief in the Sacred Scripture. It

has received more unsolicited commendation than

any other book the publishers have ever issued.

If it has been an inspiration to you, we hope that

you will join in its circulation.

1

The Bible in the Critic’s Den

By Earle Albert Rowell

1917

Contents

Introductory

I- THE STORM CENTER OF THE AGES

II- IS THE CHURCH PREPARED?

III- THE GENESIS OF HIGHER CRITICISM

IV- DOUBT AS AN AID TO BELIEF

V- CREMATING THE OLD TESTAMENT

VI- NEW METHODS OF INTERPRETATION

VII- THE MATTER OF STYLE

VIII- HUMANIZING INSPIRATION

IX- THE CHURCH DEGRADING CHRIST

X- THE CHURCH DEMOLISHING ITS OWN FOUNDATION

XI- MANUFACTURING A NEW GOSPEL

XII- EVAPORATING THE SUPERNATURAL

XIII- THE SURE WORD OF GOD

XIV- THE WITNESS OF PROPHECY

XV- WITNESS OF PROPHECY-GOD’S PEOPLE

Introductory

The few Bibles of the Medieval Ages were chained, and few had access to them. It was then considered

beyond the understanding of the common people. Now the “advanced” man would muti-late it, and bury it

under the hypotheses of “profound learning.” Nevertheless, whether chained, mutilated, or buried, it will

do its God-appointed work; “for no word from God shall be void of power.” Luke 1: 37, A. R. V. Cast off

the roots and branches of ‘Christian Skepticism’ and return, oh return to the old paths, the safe way of faith

and obedience. “Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is

the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk

therein.” Jer 6:16. Introductory A GREATER crisis confronts the religious world to-day than confronts the

civil. The civil is for a time; the religious deals with eternity. This is not saying that the kind and character

of civil government are not important. They are. But the principles which have eternal issue in character

are infinitely more important. For many centuries, the Bible has been considered by the Christian church,

nominally at least, the standard or test by which all creeds should be measured, all moral conduct judged.

That there has been wide diversion from the standard, and perversion of its teaching, goes without saying;

but the nominal standard has been held, the Bible exalted, as the very citadel of faith and morals. Now the

citadel is under bombardment. The holy standard is under fire. Moral rule of conduct, atonement, miracle,

and resurrection are under the dissecting knives of learned doctors of theology, professed friends of the

Christian religion. Formerly infidelity was outside the pale of the church. Now its proponents are men in

canonicals, who have taken sacerdotal vows as shepherds in the flock of God. The author of this little book

was himself once an infidel. He did not then know the Bible or its Giver. He had read and studied works of

The Bible In The Critic’s Den

2

infidelity to confirm his non-belief. Interested and eager, yet he found no rest, no satisfaction. When he

came to see divinity in the Word, righteousness and life the central aim and purpose of the Book, Christ

Jesus, Saviour and Friend, vicarious Sacrifice and coming King, he gave himself to the militant army of

faith, and against the false theories which would undermine the confidence, guide, and hope, of humanity.

Needless to say that much more could be written, has been written; but publishers and author have deemed

best to give a small work a large circulation rather than a more pretentious volume a limited sale. This book

is sent forth with the prayer that it may confirm the faith of the believing, and turn from the darkness of

doubt those who feel themselves slipping from the foundation of God’s eternal verities. THE

PUBLISHERS.

The ocean storms and waves have been beating about the rock for ages, and dashing their thundering

volumes upon its invulnerable strength. But the rock still stands, a foundation for the beneficent lighthouse,

which sends its guiding waves over the stormy deep. The Bible is God’s rock of truth. Sometimes men fail

in furnishing the light, but the Rock of the Word stands fast forever!

1. THE STORM CENTER OF THE AGES

THE most bitterly hated book in all the world is the Bible. Men have written thousands of volumes, and

spent millions of dollars, to disprove it. Fifteen hundred years ago, the emperor Julian brought to bear the

vast wealth and powerful army of Rome to reestablish the Jewish temple and religion, in order to disprove

the prophecies of the Bible. A few years ago, Sir William Ramsay journeyed over Asia Minor to

demonstrate that the New Testament could not be true, and ended by writing books proving its truth. In

their furious endeavor to annihilate the Bible, men have turned the key, lifted the headsman’s ax, pulled the

rope, applied the fagot, betrayed son and daughter, father and mother, to horrible fates, soaked the soil of

Europe and written the pages of history with the blood of the world’s noblest and best. Why this strange

obsession? Why this animosity, as fresh and acrimonious to-day as when the Word Himself hung upon the

accursed tree, the victim of the murderous rage of a whole people He had come to benefit? Why this

virulent passion of 1,900 years of cyclonic vindictiveness towards a religion whose basic principle is love

to God and love to man? This is an enigma that has saddened the hearts of those who feel, and puzzled the

intellects of those who think. The Bible is the most expensive possession of the human race. It has cost the

blood of millions of martyrs. The earth’s greatest and wisest have gladly given their lives that it might live.

The Son of God shed His precious lifeblood that “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people”

might read it. Around the Bible have raged, in varying fury, the storms of the ages. All the moral and

intellectual forces of the centuries have mustered their strength in attack and defense of this one Book, and

its product, Christianity. The attack, and therefore the defense, have altered in form only to increase in

intensity as the centuries have passed. Never for a moment has the battle ceased. There have been lulls,

invariably followed by a fiercer attack upon some other point. No other book could have withstood a

thousandth part of the fiendish, seductive, deceptive, insidious, infuriate assault that has been directed for

so many centuries against the Bible. How, then, it may be asked, can the Bible endure it? The Bible is more

than a book, though it is the greatest of all books. It is more than a compendium of ethics, though it has

revolutionized ethics. It is more than a system of morals, though it is the basis of morals. It is more than a

philosophy of life, though it has transformed life. It is more than a religion, though it is the source of

Christianity, the world’s only true religion. The Bible is all of this and infinitely more. It is the life of God

expressed in words and exemplified in the life of His Son; and this life it is which flows into the soul of the

believer, making him the heir of eternity. Man is not saved by theology, new or old, nor by creeds, good or

bad, but by Christ. What we need is not a new theology, but a new heart; not a change of legislation, but a

change of character. The recent attempt to tinker the Ten Commandments and the Bible to suit man’s

disposition, so as to save man the trouble of suiting his disposition to the Ten Commandments and the

Bible, is not the way to save man, but to damn him; is but the age-old battle raging within the gospel fort.

While the Bible is the result of God’s seeking man, all human philosophies and isms are the fruit of man’s

seeking God. While “destiny without God is a riddle, and history without God is a tragedy,” salvation

without Christ is suicide, and Christianity without the Bible is the doom of nations, the end of the world.

Infidelity takes many forms. When to be a Christian is to court death, there are few infidels within the pale

The Bible In The Critic’s Den

3

of the church; but when Christianity lowers the standard to include the world, inevitably the skeptics come

in. Paul, ages ago, said that wolves would enter the flock and not spare it. Christ foretold as much, more

than once. It should not surprise us, then, to find this a fact. Sad as it will be, it is our duty to defend the

Bible against the skepticism of its professed defenders when these professors adopt the infidelity of the

past and exalt it in the church as new light. Many churches are yet stanch and true, and are trying to keep

the insidious unbelief of some ministers out of their pulpits and church literature. What neither the

ignorance of the bigot nor the hatred of the armed oppressor, the narrowness of the pedant nor the scoffing

malice of the infidel, could accomplish, the defection of some of the trusted religious leaders has done.

While for centuries the combined might of the Bible’s enemies beat vauntingly, fiercely, but in vain,

against the bulwarks of Christianity, ecclesiastical hands, pledged to the defense of the heavenly country,

have torn the banner of Christ from the tower staff, and opened the gates of the fort to the enemies of the

Bible, so that now the battle over the Bible rages, for the first time since the Master’s death, within the

church and around the pulpit. As we look at present-day events, we are compelled to ask: “Are the

convulsions of society the harbingers of a better era? Are the throes through which humanity is passing the

birth pangs that are to give us a grander civilization, or are they the death agonies of the human race? Are

the doubts of the doctors of divinity the germs of a higher belief, or the final and most audacious

entrenchment of infidelity within the church? Is the skepticism of the church’s leaders a nobler spirituality,

or has every doubt a sin sticking to its roots? Are the pulverized Bible and a fallible human Jesus the

foundation of a diviner religion, a surer salvation, or the certain evidence of religious decay and

dissolution?” The church, it has been said, has done everything with the Scriptures except obey them. They

have been read aloud in homes, enshrined in magnificent edifices of worship, honored in gorgeous

ceremonies, commented on, trimmed, and glossed, till now many ministers and their flocks regard them as

a sort of Arabian tales, and Jesus as merely a purer Buddha or a wiser Socrates. The man who proclaims a

belief in the infallibility of the Bible and in the deity of Christ is in many religious circles a religious

curiosity, a survival of an antique superstition. “They shall put you out of the synagogues,” said Jesus;

“yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall think that he offereth service unto God. And these

things will they do, because they have not known the Father, nor Me.” John 16:2,3. The history of

hundreds of years, and the torturous death of many martyrs, are a horrible but practical commentary upon

these words of Jesus. Theism alone, a mere belief in God, is so far from being sufficient, that Christ’s own

death was consummated by men of fervent theistic faith. The Mohammedans are the most rigid and

enthusiastic monotheists in the world, but their history also shows them to exercise in behalf of their

religion, cruelty, immense and unsparing. Herein lies much of the danger of the present-day destructive

criticism that is indulged by all too many ministers, many of them ignorant of the threatening dangers of

their teachings. The faith of the critical ministers is not based on nor derived from the Bible. They are

drifting, without knowing it, towards theism, pure and simple, like Unitarianism. However numerous the

eddies of the present current of destructive criticism, and no matter whether found in or out of the church,

the whole stream has been in one direction - to demolish Christ as our Saviour, the Decalogue as the

standard of moral law, and the Bible as the infallible will of God, leaving us evolution in place of a

Saviour, human conceptions of right in place of the Decalogue, and philosophy in place of the Bible. If the

little Rome of Marius could hurl back the hordes of invading Cimbri and Teutons, says Charles Jefferson,

who would have dreamed that the mighty Rome of Augustus would fall a prey to the weak descendants of

the invaders? If the few believers of the apostolic days were victorious against the hatred of the Jew, the

subtlety of the Greek, and the iron might of Rome, combined, who would have dreamed that scores of

millions of Christians in the twentieth century would surrender their faith to the ridicule of the modern

critics? Still the battle goes on, with the Bible as the battle center in every charge. It has survived the hatred

of the infidel, the blind, unreasoning zeal of the fanatic, and the contemptuous indifference of the selfseeker.

Will it survive the combined attacks of avowed infidels without, and baptized, secret infidels

within? Never before in all the long and tempestuous history of war against the Bible, have its open

enemies and its professed friends combined to discredit it. How will it fare under this Ingersoll-Judas

onslaught? In every church are many who are aroused to ask this question, and who seek to unite with the

friends of the Bible in concerted defense against its enemies wherever found. It is the purpose of this little

book to aid in this defense. God’s word spoke light to the primitive earth; that Word is light still to the soul

of faith. There is but one effective preparation — panoplied in “the whole armor of God.”

The Bible In The Critic’s Den

4

2 - IS THE CHURCH PREPARED?

PREPAREDNESS” is the great word of the hour, the word to conjure with. It has even supplanted so

mighty and so popular a word as “efficient.” Preparedness is efficiency for the future - is being efficient for

an event which we believe or know to be inevitable. Preparedness, then, is the foresight of efficiency, is

efficiency carried to the highest point of service. Preparedness postulates the ability not only to arm for an

emergency, but also to foresee what the emergency will be. Obviously, to prepare for something that never

could happen, would be folly. The only reason a nation prepares for war is because it believes war to be

either possible or inevitable. Likewise, if a nation, in preparing, could, by some fortunate eventuality, know

just what kind of fighting engines would be most effective in the future, that nation would concentrate on

their manufacture. To prepare for war, then, presumes the possibility of war, coupled with a belief that

certain armaments will afford efficient protection. How relieved and delighted would our statesmen be if a

true prophet should arise and tell them not only the how and the when of future national trouble, but also

detail to them how to be prepared for it all! While nations do not expect and will not receive such coveted

guidance, the church of God has had detailed information on all points of controversy and trial that ever

would harass it, together with a complete set of instructions, which, if followed, infallibly insure victory for

her in every conflict. Preparedness has been a fundamental teaching of the prophets for ages. Amos, 2,700

years ago, issued the startling warning to the church, “Prepare to meet thy God, 0 Israel.” Amos 4:12.

Isaiah, the great prophet of the Messiah’s coming, understood the necessity of preparing for that event

hundreds of years in advance. Realizing that a comprehension; on the part of Israel, of the significance of

Christ’s coming would purify their religious life, he sent forth the flaming message, “Prepare ye the way of

the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Isaiah 40:3. Malachi, the last prophet of the

Old Testament, bore, as we would expect, a warning and a prophecy of preparedness for Jesus’ coming.

“Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me.” Mal. 3: 1. Jesus said of John

the Baptist that “this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, which

shall prepare Thy way before Thee.” Matt. 11:10. See also Luke 1:76. John the Baptist’s message of

preparedness emphasized two things: First, the certainty of the Messiah’s soon coming. “The kingdom of

heaven is at hand.” Second, the only way to prepare for that great and long-looked-for event. “Repent ye:

for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matt. 3:2. John’s work is expressly stated to have been “to make

ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Luke 1:17. This preparation was to be accomplished, not by the

erection of expensive temples, not by higher education, not by science, but by the simple though effective

method of repentance. Just before Jesus left this earth, He told of the campaign of preparedness He would

carry on in heaven: “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come

again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye I may be also.” John 14:2, 3. Thus we see

that the whole activity of Christ’s preparedness campaign looked toward His second advent. That this is

true Jesus makes clear in a parable: “If that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming, . . . that

servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be

beaten with many stripes.” Luke 12: 45, 47. While the nations are saying, “Proclaim ye this among the

gentiles; Prepare war” (Joel 3:9), Christ has sent His servants to sound another preparedness message:

“Prepare to meet thy God.” While the nations are preparing for Armageddon, are the churches preparing

for Christ’s return? Are the churches taking advantage of the supernatural revelation of the future as

outlined in the Bible, and preparing to meet the awful events it foretells? The nations, not knowing

infallibly what the future holds, may be excused for being taken unawares by circumstances. But what

excuse can the church give? She has multiplied millions of Bibles in her ranks, each Bible telling clearly

what to prepare for and how to prepare. Since the church has no excuse to offer for lack of preparation

should she be found in that sad state, it may be pertinent to inquire, Is the church prepared for the

emergencies of the present and the horrors of the future? Let us see what her own leaders say. Dr.

Washington Gladden, who is usually an enthusiastic optimist, says : “The failure of modern evangelism is

not conjectural; the yearbooks show it. . . . It is idle to blink these conditions; we must face them and find

out what they mean.”-”The Church and Modern Life,” pages 179, 180. Many other leading divines concur

with Dr. Gladden in this stricture of the results of modern evangelism. If the present methods are a failure,

what are the prospects for the future? The future of the church depends largely, as all will admit, upon the

number and quality of its leaders. Here, too, we find conditions serious. “The decline in the number of

young men in training for the ministry is notorious,” says G. B. Thompson, in “Churches and Wage

The Bible In The Critic’s Den

5

Earners,” page 192. Even this, serious as it is, is by no means the worst. Dr. George L. Raymond says, “For

years, while occupying a professorship necessarily bringing me into close relation with students proficient

in oratory, I have noticed a gradual decrease in the proportionate number and quality of those entering the

Christian ministry.” “Psychology of Inspiration,” page 4. Dr. Joseph Henry Crooker says that between

1898 and 1908, there was a relative decrease in the number of students in the American divinity schools, of

thirty per cent. (”The Church of To-Day,” page 50.) Modern evangelism a failure, an alarming decrease in

both number and quality of those entering the ministry! Is this the preparedness Christ has a right to

expect? No wonder that Dr. Mott is greatly exercised over these facts. “What calamity,” cries he, “next to

the withdrawal of Christ’s presence, would be more dreaded than to have young men of genius and large

equipment withdraw themselves from responding to the call of the Christian ministry?”-”The Future

Leadership of the Church,” page 4. He admits that the new theologians are responsible for this. “Their

views are unsettled as to the nature and authority of the Bible. One finds not only questioning as to the

nature of Old Testament revelation, but a serious recrudescence of skepticism about the New Testament.

This sense of uncertainty about the character and scope of divine revelation is deepened in the minds of

these young men by their observation of ministers who themselves are unsettled and who give public

expression to their doubts.” Id., page 73. Desperate efforts are put forth to increase the quota of ministerial

students, just as is done to increase church membership in too many cases. As some churches lower the

standard to increase their popularity, so, in order to increase the number of clerical candidates, those who

are practically infidels are not only accepted, but encouraged to enter the ministry. Dr. Mott tries to put as

good a face as possible on this ugly fact. Concerning it, he says: “Such difficulties [skepticism as to the

fundamentals of Christianity] operate less now than formerly, because Christian leaders have come to feel

that a wise tolerance as to formal belief at this period best facilitates the leading of such young men into

settled convictions regarding substantial religious truths. They concede that a certain latitude in such

matters may be permitted.”- Id., page 75. Dr. Mott is known the world over as a great Christian leader, as a

man of fervent personal faith. When he gives voice to such discouraging statements as the above, it is only

because the facts themselves must force him to admissions that pain him. It is indeed painful to

contemplate putting into the ministry, because of a growing decrease of the more desirable, men who are

avowed doubters. How can a doubting ministry be expected to make a believing church? The fruit of faith

does not grow on the tree of doubt. But we are amazed when we consider the kind of instruction given to

the decreasing number and poorer quality who do finally attend the theological colleges. “A theological

student,” says Dr. Charles Jefferson, “at the end of the first year of his seminary course, is the most

demoralized individual to be found on this earth. His early conception of the Bible has been torn down all

the way to the cellar, and he is obliged to build up a new conception from the foundations.”- “Things

Fundamental,” pages 120, 121. The “new conception” is the new theology, or higher criticism, which is so

popular today. To prepare a church for the strenuous present and the still more strenuous future, with

leaders who are “the most demoralized individuals to be found on this earth,” will certainly be a

tremendous task. Is this preparing for Christ’s coming? Is this the way for the church to prepare for any

religious work? What teaching is this that so demoralizes the students? Let a leader of the religious thought

of this country and of the world answer. Dr. Charles Augustus Briggs, for many years instructor in the

Union Theological Seminary, and author of various books used in the theological colleges of the world,

teaches that “we are obliged to admit that there are scientific errors in the Bible, errors of astronomy, of

geology, of zoology, of botany, and of anthropology. . . . There are chronological, geographical, and other

circumstantial inconsistencies and errors. . . . In all matters which constitute the framework of divine

instruction, errors may be found.”-”Study of Holy Scripture,” pages 627, 634. From the above, it would

seem impossible for the world to contain a more erroneous book than the Bible. When we realize that such

instruction as this is a commonplace in scores of theological schools, we no longer wonder that the students

become “the most demoralized individuals to be found on this earth.” That these numerous “errors” are

never shown does not matter; for the young theological student naturally supposes that his instructors,

sworn to the defense of the gospel, would never admit such errors unless they had to do so. Hence he

assumes that the learned professors have ample proof for such sweeping statements; and instead of

investigating to learn the truth, he too often allows his faith to be blasted by such falsehoods. Need we any

longer wonder, in view of the foregoing facts, that the many churches fed with this kind of spiritual poison

are fast dying, instead of growing strong and active in preparation for Christ’s second coming? The awful

calamities thrust upon us by the world war, and the consequent unsettled condition of society, make the

demands on the church heavier than ever before in history. At a time when men’s faith is being shattered by

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terrible events, the world turns to the church for aid, and for a robust faith to carry it through its time of

dire distress. And what does it find? - The church too often unprepared, without faith in the Book which

foretold the terrible events of the present, and foretells those still future, and also warns and instructs how

to prepare to meet them. Church leaders everywhere recognize the fact that the church is at the parting of

the ways; that while, in ages past, she has been called to face many a crisis, the most critical of her history

presses at the gates. Dr. Crocker says: “The increasing paganism of America is no mere fear or fancy of a

timorous pessimist. The thunderheads of a coming storm are on our civic and social horizons. He who will

not see them and do what he can to avert the impending storm is either unfortunately blind or criminally

indifferent.”-”The Church of Today,” page 143. What is the present-day tendency within the church in

many places? Is it towards greater faith in the Bible as God’s infallible Word, or increasing doubt

concerning much of it? Let Canon Cheyne, one of the leaders of English Biblical scholarship, answer:

“Every competent scholar knows that the ‘sober’ criticism of to-day was considered ‘extravagant’

yesterday.”-”Bible Problems,” page 54. May we infer that the extravagant criticism of today will be

considered sober to-morrow? Concerning the term “liberal orthodox,” the Rev. M. J. Savage says, “It

means, when you interpret it and put it in straight English, that they have given up the old-time belief in

almost every one of the points that used to be regarded as absolutely essential.”-”Religion for To-Day,”

page 11. Professor Jordon, of Kingston, puts it “in straight English” also “It is no use attempting to

minimize the difference between the traditional view and the critical treatment of the Old Testament. The

difference is immense; they involve different views as to the course of Israel’s history, progress of

revelation, and the nature of inspiration.”-”American Journal of Theology,” January, 1902, page 114. Dr.

Hazzard claims that the two views “are nothing short of mutually destructive.”-”Reasons for the Higher

Criticism of the Hexateuch,” page 17. The Rev. Isaac Gibson affirms that “the traditional and critical views

are face to face in open antagonism.”-Id., page 100. The Rev. Dr. McFadyen sums up the whole situation

clearly “Almost every representative of both parties . . . stands within the church; and that is what

constitutes the real pathos of the whole situation. If the critics were all without the church, careless of her

interests and indifferent to her Lord, while their opponents were all within the church, alone in their

devotion to the service of Christ, the situation might be easily and plausibly explained. But it is not so.”-

“Old Testament Criticism and the Christian Church,” page 313. Shortly after the crucifixion, the banner of

faith and practice was held high by the church in spotless purity. Soon some of the leaders reasoned that

the pure religion of Christ would be more successful and popular if its demands were not so stringent. Sad

was the day for humanity when such a diabolical idea was advocated, and sadder yet the day when it was

carried into practice. In the black records of the Dark Ages is written the account of that fatal defection

from the high standard of Christ. Terrible was the delusion, blind the reasoning, that led to such a course,

and awful was the penalty. The results of that course are much more evident today than they were when it

was inaugurated. Criminals at heart now seek the respectability of church membership, the better to carry

on their nefarious operations. Two things peculiar to this age conspire to make this possible: the popularity

of Christianity as compared with the apostolic age, and the gradual lowering of the standard in many

places. That famous divine and author, the late Dr. Josiah Strong, than whom no one had the good of the

church more at heart, observed with alarm this tendency. Said he: “Immorality and crime are increasing

much more rapidly than church membership. That is, the dangerous and destructive elements are making

decidedly greater progress than the conservative. Our churches are growing, our missionary operations

extending, our benefactions swelling, and we congratulate ourselves upon our progress; but we have only

to continue making the same kind of progress long enough, and our destruction is sure.”-”Our Country,”

page 216. This is a tremendously startling statement. It comes from one of the most acute observers of

modern times, and one who was never sensational for effect; yet it is one of the most sensational statements

made in this generation. While we see the many activities of the church growing, and congratulate

ourselves upon our progress, if we keep on as we are going, our destruction is inevitable. Then we are

simply progressing downward. It is a thought of awful import; and Dr. Strong, who was an incurable

optimist, would never have given voice to it if he had not been forced to do so by the ugly facts. Dr.

Crooker observes the danger, and raises his voice in warning: “The cheapening of the church is one of the

alarming signs of the times. . . . Piety has never been made plentiful by being made easy. Sensationalism is

not the way to spirituality. . . . Trying to make the church attractive by making it worldly will never enable

it to conquer the world.”-”The Church of To-Day,” pages 55, 56. In order to hold the people who are

pleasure-bent, many churches have formed literary clubs, established gymnasiums, swimming clubs,

photographic clubs, rambling clubs, tennis and croquet clubs, added billiard rooms, smoking rooms,

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restaurants, even dance halls and theaters. A “religious” saloon was opened by Bishop Potter, of New

York, to keep the drinking class in touch with the church. But do these efforts avail to bring people to

church? In 1840, Boston had one Protestant church to every 1,228 souls; in 1900, one to every 2,234. In

New York City, in 1840, there was one to every 955; in 1900, one to every 4,736. There are only one half

as many churches to-day, in proportion to the population, as fifty years ago. (Dr. Strong, “Challenge of the

City,” page 54.) How can we expect other than failure, asks Dr. Strong, when the church dallies with God,

and coquets with Satan? During twenty years in New York, a population of 200,000 moved in below

Fourteenth Street, and eighty-seven Protestant churches moved out. In Philadelphia, in one section, while

the population increased fourfold, twenty-five Protestant churches died or moved out. This is more than a

retreat; it is a rout - a stampede. (”Challenge of the City,” pages 121, 122.) (Temcat’s note- Remember the

urgency with which Ellen White was urging the evangelism of the great cities at that time!) When, as Dr.

Strong estimated, church members spend $200,000,000 a year for cigars, and $7,000,000 a year for

missions, one can hardly expect to find overcrowded churches. “Investigation made by the writer,” says the

Rev. G. B. Thompson, “in New England, and by a friend in a large part of Boston, would not warrant an

estimate of even fifteen per cent of the population as regular attendants.”-”The Churches and Wage

Earners,” page 6. “Within recent years,” says Stelzle, “forty Protestant churches moved out of the district

below Twentieth Street in New York City, while 300,000 people moved in.”-”Christianity’s Storm Center,”

page 17. On Sunday, March 19, 1911, the New York Church Association took the census of church

attendance of all Christians, Protestants and Catholics, of Manhattan Island, and found that ten per cent of

the people were in church. Where were the ninety per cent? It is evident, from the facts presented, that an

exceedingly serious condition confronts us in the general condition of the church. The godly men of all

denominations recognize the danger, and are seeking to know its meaning, and how to overcome it. It is

always wiser to diagnose before prescribing. In the next few chapters, we will inquire into the nature of the

trouble, the effects of which are all about us. In the final chapters, we will seek the remedy. Shall we

destroy the bridge which has borne millions to hope and salvation?

3 - THE GENESIS OF HIGHER CRITICISM

THE year 1914 saw the beginning of the most horrible catastrophe the world has ever seen since the Flood.

This war has devastated a dozen nations, thrown the whole world into a tumult of apprehension, killed and

wounded many millions. That this should or could happen in the most highly civilized and Christianized

nations of earth has led the whole world to ask, “Is Christianity a failure?” This frightful carnage among

Christian peoples, butchering one another with all the ferocity of savages, has given point to the infidel’s

sneer that after nineteen hundred years of Christianity, the world is no better than in the time of the monster

Nero, and seems in some respects worse. Is the cause of this war to be found, as skeptics assert, in the

failure of Christianity? Or is it to be found in the rejection of Christianity by those who profess to accept

it? That the so-called Christian nations have failed somewhere, none can deny. But are the nations as

Christianized as we have been led to suppose? Even in the United States, only about a third of the

inhabitants so much as make a profession of Christianity. “Are all those who profess religion real believers

in the Bible?” is a question that is asked more insistently, as evidence becomes clearer that many of the

religious leaders are teaching infidelity. The Rev. G. A. Gordon, of Boston, is known throughout the nation

as a careful, scholarly minister. He recognizes something new in the history of religion. “A new mood has

arisen in the sphere of religion. It fills the educated world. It reaches the entire intelligence of the time. Is

this new mood for better, or for worse? Is there any law or force upon which one may look for control of

the fearful flood? When Christian scholars, teachers, preachers, disciples of the Lord, have, in one degree

or another, abandoned immemorial traditions, is there any guide on whom we may rely?”-”Religion and

Miracle,” pages 149, 150. The Rev. R. F. Horton, one of the leaders of English religious thought, observes

the same tendency. “The Bible, which was declared by Chillingworth to be the religion of the Protestants,

has been dissected, analyzed, discredited, denied, by Protestant scholars.”-”My Belief,” page 88. The Rev.

Dr. G. A. Smith, known internationally as conservative, is likewise aware of this new movement and its

results. Higher criticism “has shaken the belief of some in the fundamentals of religion, distracted others

from the zealous service of God, and benumbed the preaching of Christ’s gospel.”-”Modern Criticism and

Preaching of the Old Testament.” A new movement that is so prolific of disastrous results is worthy of

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careful study- yes, demands most serious consideration; for if these men are right, the greatest danger that

ever confronted the church is even now besetting her, and immediate aid is needed. The attack on the

church and the Bible has changed greatly in the last generation. To-day there is not the crude and violent

unbelief that repels by its coarseness. Infidelity is just as infidelic, but it is more refined. It has taken on

culture and learning. It no longer inhabits mainly the taverns and the gambling hells. Its headquarters are

now in the great universities and some of the renowned theological institutions, and its propagators are

often their learned professors and theologians. But in neither place is it called by its right name. In the

university, infidelity parades under the garb of science; and in the church, it is called higher criticism. It

everywhere scorns the coarse unbelief of Paine, while adopting his very arguments. It eschews with a

shudder the vulgarity of Rousseau, while vigorously maintaining his conclusions. It clothes itself in the

pleasing livery of culture and learning, or the grave habiliments of Christianity. For hundreds of years, the

thinking of Europe was held in thralldom by the speculations and superstitions of the ancients and the

traditions of the fathers. When, however, the mind began to free itself, the power of superstition was

broken, tradition lost its strength, and men ventured to think for themselves. From believing everything,

they swung to the opposite extreme. Thus we find thinkers of the eighteenth century, led by Descartes,

Hume, and Gibbon, doubting everything. They went so far as to doubt not only the truth of the Bible, but

the existence of God, and even their own existence. Finally some leaders of religious thought, in search for

intellectual novelty, imbibed freely of the rising critical movement among unbelievers, and began gradually

to apply the principles of doubting to the Bible. “Criticism is not this or that opinion,” says Professor Nash,

“neither is it this or that body of opinions. It is an intellectual temperament, a mental disposition.”-”History

of Higher Criticism,” pages 84, 85. It is a movement of doubt, of denial, of skepticism, that is gathering

force in both the world and the church with each passing year. Its roots are in heathenism, its poisonous

fruitage is in the professedly Christian church. This new form of infidelity - higher criticism- must not be

confounded with lower or textual criticism, which has to do solely with ascertaining from the oldest

documents the exact text of Scripture. This study was made increasingly necessary by the advent of the

wholesale criticism, which ran like wildfire over the world of thought. All honor to those noble scholars

who, like Tischendorf, and Tregelles, and Griesbach, and Westcott, and Hort,* have devoted the energies

of their great minds and long lives to the humble but important work of textual investigation. (*This is to

be queried. -temcat) Higher criticism is an entirely different affair. It devotes itself to considering the

“integrity, authenticity, literary form, and reliability” of the Bible.-Charles A. Briggs, D. D., “Study of

Holy Scripture,” page 92. This sounds innocent enough; but when the results of this method are to destroy

the integrity, deny the authority, alter the literary form, and evaporate the reliability of the Scriptures, an

investigation is seriously demanded. Richard Simon, a Roman Catholic priest, is called the “father of

higher criticism.” In 1678, he advanced the new theory that only the ordinances and commands of the

books of Moses were written by him, while the history was the product of various other writers, fused into

its present form either by him or by some one else. Simon’s declared purpose was “to show that the

Protestants had no assured principle for their religion.” How it saddens the heart to see leading Protestants

eagerly engaged in aiding this very work! Simon’s views were so vigorously attacked at the time, that they

lay dormant for scores of years; but in 1753, higher criticism again raised its hideous form from the dust. In

this year, Jean Astruc, another Roman Catholic, by the publication of his “Conjectures,” inaugurated the

main movement which for a hundred and fifty, years has been growing with accelerating influence, until

to-day it is the dominant theological conception in the religious world. In these “Conjectures,” Astruc

called attention to the fact that in Genesis, the word for “Creator is sometimes “God” (Elohim) and

sometimes “Lord” (Jehovah). For instance, in Gen. 1:1, we read that “God created the heaven and the

earth;” and in Gen. 4:9, “The Lord said unto Cain.” Absurd as it may seem, it is a fact that the use of “God”

in one place and “Lord” in another was adduced as proof that the accounts in which these words are found

were written by different men at widely different times. This is the beginning and foundation of that topheavy

structure of higher criticism, which overshadows everything else in the religious world to-day and is

casting the black shadow of doubt across every page of Holy Writ. Thus in the Catholic Church was

conceived, born, and nursed the modern child of unbelief. With shame I must write that it has been adopted

by Protestantism, like many another child of error born of Catholicism, and is eagerly heralded by

Protestant divines as the child of light. In 1771, the German critic Semler published the book “Treatise on

the Free Investigation of the Canon,” which gave a new impulse to the movement. He maintained that as

the canon was not formed at one stroke, but gradually, the documents composing the Bible were produced

by a like growth. While this theory contained a grain of truth, it was soon warped out of all semblance to

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fact. The next step was taken in 1780, by J. G. Eichhorn, who combined in one work all the results of

previous critics; claimed, in addition, to see other differences between the two “sections” than in the divine

name; extended the theory over the whole of the Old Testament; laid down the rule, now, universally

accepted by higher critics, that Bible “writings are to be read as human productions and tested in human

ways;” and for the first time, gave the process the name of “higher criticism.” In 1792, still another Roman

Catholic divine, Dr. Geddes, advanced the movement by promulgation of the “fragmentary hypothesis,”

which resolved the first six books into an agglomeration of longer and shorter fragments between which no

threads of connection existed, put together in the reign of Solomon. All this, however, was mild compared

with what was soon to follow. The Armory from Which Our Lord’s Effective Weapons Were Drawn

(Compare Matt. 4 : 4, 7, 10) “Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of

the mouth of the Lord.” Deut. 8: 3. “Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God.” Deut. 6: 16. “Thou shalt fear

the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.” Deut. 6: 13, Septuagint. With De Wette’s essays, in

1805, began the bold unbelief of higher criticism proper. He flatly refused to find anything in the books of

Moses but legend and poetry - history, he maintained, there was none. He advanced the now accepted

critical theory that the date of the discovery of the book of Deuteronomy in the temple 624 B. C. was also

the date of its composition. It was declared to be a pious fraud perpetrated by priests to establish their

power, and hidden by them in the temple, to be discovered by one of themselves. That ministers of the

gospel believe and teach such a thing is an astounding fact. That leading ministers of the world believe and

teach that one of the sublimest compositions in the world is only a lie, manufactured by hypocritical

religious leaders for purposes of fraud, is startling evidence of the pernicious character of the higher critical

theory. While the distinction of the divine names failed after Exodus 6, the lynx-eyed critics claimed to

detect other linguistic phenomena which served as well. So Bleek in 1822, Ewald in 1831, and Stahelm in

1835, developed the new theories. In 1835, a long stride was taken in higher criticism. That year saw the

publication of Vate’s “Old Testament Theology,” Baur’s “Pastoral Epistles,” and Strauss’s “Life of Jesus.”

The violent religious controversy arising from these productions lasted till 1853, when Hupfeld superseded

the “fragmentary hypothesis” with the “document hypothesis,” which found three main documents instead

of two. The finishing touches were now given in rapid succession. The “document hypothesis” soon gave

way to the present prevailing theory, the “development hypothesis,” formulated by Reuss, and made public

in 1866 by Graf, who turned a critical somersault by advancing the theory that Leviticus was written two

hundred years after Deuteronomy. Since 1883, Wellhausen has been elaborating this theory, till his views

dominate higher criticism the world over. They have crossed the mountains and permeate France, passed

over the channel and control England, sailed the ocean and prevail in America. There were now four

sources recognized in the first half of the Old Testament, designated by the capitals J, E, D, and P. But this

was by no means all. These four sources were found to be inadequate to account for all the contents of

these books ; so the critics, in an endeavor to make their preposterous theory stand upright, made a further

division and subdivision. The original J and E of Astruc were dissolved into this nebulous series: J1, J2, J3,

J4; E1, E2, E3, E4, etc., or equivalents, all of which are now part of the recognized critical apparatus of

higher critical books and magazines. But the end is not yet. The heights of absurdity might seem to have

been reached; but no, the masterpiece of foolishness was yet to come. Having got themselves entangled in

the critical cogs, it was impossible to escape. The Rev. C. A. Briggs, D. D., gravely informs us that “there

were groups of earlier Ephraimitic (E) and Judaic (J) writers, and they were followed by groups of

Deuteronomic (D) and Priestly (P) writers.”-”Study of Holy Scripture,” page 290. (See also Gunkel,

“Genesis,” page 58; Cheyne, “Founders of Criticism,” page 39; Dr. Driver, “Genesis,” page 16.) Charles

Foster Kent, professor of Biblical literature in Yale University, tells us there were whole schools of writers

at work for centuries on the “task of collecting, arranging, and combining the earlier writings of their

race.”-”Beginnings of Hebrew History,” page 42. (See also McFadyen, “Messages of Prophecy and Priestly

Historians,” page 22.) So at last we have arrived by the critical route at the present position of the new

theology, - that whole “schools of writers” were continuously engaged for centuries in patching, revising,

tessellating, resetting, altering, and embellishing the work of their predecessors, some of which was fraud

and forgery! This is what our leading Protestant scholars believe to be the origin and foundation of the

Christian religion! Reluctantly we are led to admit, in the words of Hugh McIntosh, that higher criticism

“would bury an expired Christianity with an incredible Bible, beside a dead Christ, in a hopeless grave,

from which there is no resurrection; and bury along with them the only consolation of a sorrowful

humanity amid the desolations of death and the darkness of futurity, without one ray of hope to alleviate

the eternal gloom; and would turn mankind backward millenniums, and convert the dawn of a new century

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into a midnight darkness and a world’s despair.” However harshly I may criticize the theories of higher

critics, I desire to make it emphatically understood that at no time have I anything to say against the morals

of a single higher critic. I admire their many noble thoughts, their profound learning. It is not their motive I

impeach or even question. But I exercise the same freedom in criticizing their theories that they have

already used in criticizing the Bible. It is not because I desire to criticize either these gentlemen or their

theories that I have written; it is because, after studying their writings for years, I am more firmly

convinced, each passing year, that the greatest danger which ever threatened the church lurks in these very

theories. I agree with Principal Andrew Fairbairn that “we ought never to have controversy with men, only

with false systems; and with what is false only that we may win the fitter opportunity to speak the truth.”-

“Studies in Religion and Theology,” page 137. It is not the iniquitous life of the abandoned sinner, nor the

debauching example of the libertine, that corrupts men, so much as the subtle influence of harmful

opinions fostered and advocated by moral men, noble men, who, under the delusion that they are

propagating principles for the good of humanity, exert their great learning and charming genius to lead to

eternal ruin. As noble a man as ever lived may, in walking along a hillside, loosen with his foot a stone

above the heads of people below. No matter how many errands of mercy those feet have traveled, the

danger to those beneath will not be lessened one whit thereby, nor the stone be made any softer when it

comes crushing upon them. If I see the stone loosened by feet even now bent on an errand of mercy, shall I

hold my peace because the man is noble, religious? Must I hold my peace and see innocent people killed

because, perchance, the man who kills them is a gentle-souled Samaritan? Who is so lost to the nobler

feelings of humanity, who so indifferent, that he would not cry out with all his might, “Out from under!”

“And what remains of the Bible, Beloved, is divinely inspired.” It is related as a fact that a parishioner of a

higher critic kept note of the Bible books criticized by his pastor, and cut from his Bible the portions

criticized till nothing was left but the empty covers, which he presented to the minister. Higher criticism, if

followed, leaves the world without hope in the morass of sin.

4 - DOUBT AS AN AID TO BELIEF

THE tendency of modern science is to eliminate old methods; that of modern philosophy, to discard

antique theories; that of modern Christianity, to use modern science and modern speculative philosophy to

subvert, annihilate, “the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints.” Jude 3, A. R. V. The horse

is being supplanted by the automobile, the steam engine by the electric engine, and the telegraph by

wireless. In like manner, not to be outdone in the process of substitution, modern ministers, in many

churches, are producing numerous volumes in every country in a Herculean endeavor to give us an up-todate

religion, a Christless Bible nay, - a Bibleless Christianity. Man has become so skilled in art, so

successful in science, so potent in war, that his pride revolts at the thought or suggestion of there being

anything beyond the wonderful scope of his progressive, versatile, adjustive, or creative genius. To hint at

a limitation of his achievements is to insult his ability; to criticize his methods is to malign his morals; to

disagree with his conclusions is to flout his genius; and to deprecate his emasculated religion is to traduce

mankind. In the overweening pride of his progress, man is rearing a lofty intellectual Tower of Babel. Like

the tower on the plain of Shinar, its top is designed to “reach unto heaven”- in sooth, to God Himself. But

let man beware lest his modern Babel share the fate of the ancient tower; for “the secret things belong unto

the Lord.” Through the veil of the Infinite, man cannot penetrate. Here the daring of his speculation is the

measure of his folly. Here the bowed head is the highest wisdom, and silence the noblest eloquence. The

world is being filled with pleasing fables, wooing man from the stony upward path of virtue to the flowery,

easy highway of gratification, luring him to pleasant dreams of Oriental languor in Elysian palaces of bliss.

Honest truth-seekers thus encompassed with a seducing salvation of enrapturing ease, find their minds

often clouded in perplexity, and their souls shrouded in darkness. The world in general is tossed to and fro

by every wind of doctrine, without anchor, without compass, without chart, and without Captain. This, in

an ever increasing degree, is the work of the new theology. Once the attack upon the Bible was from

without. Once the devastating criticism was led by a Voltaire. A century ago, a Paine was mightiest in

hurling invectives at Christianity. Nay, only two decades ago, an Ingersoll or a Bradlaugh held highest the

banner of Bible criticism. Then the friends of the Bible knew its enemies, for they were open and avowed.

But to-day the divine stories upon which our parents were nurtured, around which their affections

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entwined, and by which their faith was supported, are declared by the theological professors of many of the

greatest colleges in the world to be not only untrue in some parts, but false in every particular - the myths

of a superstitious and ignorant people, generated in an age of darkness. Thus has the banner of infidelity

been wrested from the Paines and the Ingersolls, and held aloft by religious leaders. I feel with grief and

write with sadness that the foundations of our faith are thus ruthlessly torn away, not by men who, like

Gibbon and Voltaire, are the declared enemies of Christianity, but by the world’s renowned professed

believers. Thus is the Bible smitten by hand of a friend. Thus is it betrayed, like its Master, with a kiss. The

modern religious teachers and leaders not only adopt the old infidel arguments, but enlarge them; not only

endorse the conclusions of the most rabid infidels, but strengthen them; not only repeat the old infidel

slogans, but invent new ones even more revolutionary. The violent unbelief of Voltaire has been baptized,

and rechristened higher criticism, or new theology, or liberal Christianity. In the doubting minds and the

sordid hearts of the scoffing skeptics of a century or more ago were planted the seeds of the rampant

unbelief which, under the sedulous cultivation of learned divines, is opening into full bloom in the

devastating higher criticism of to-day. Fallacies and frauds advanced a score of times in the past, and a

thousand times exploded, are by the higher critics gravely repeated as new and important truths. The higher

critic’s maxim, that the Bible must be studied like any other book, is the basis of all present criticism. And

this theory has led to its corollary that the Bible must be like any other book. They denounce Christ’s

teaching that “Thy word is truth,” because it contradicts their own. But either the Bible is true or it is not. It

is the word of God or a delusion. It is absolutely reliable or not at all reliable. It is, either infallible or

utterly untrustworthy. There is no middle ground. One must take his position either with Christ, Paul, and

John, or with Paine, Voltaire, and Ingersoll. But the higher critic is trying to manufacture a middle ground.

He endeavors to be at once both infidel and Christian, and succeeds in being only infidel. That I have not

exaggerated; that the higher critic is a doubter first, last, and all the time; that doubting is not only a

pleasant pastime, but a serious business with him, is easy of proof. A religious instructor in the Wesleyan

University wrote in the North American Review for April, I900, as follows: “In every sphere of

investigation, he should begin with doubt and the student will make the most rapid progress who has

acquired the art of doubting well. . . . We ask that every student of theology take up the subject precisely as

he would any other science: that he begin with doubt. . . . We believe that even the teachings of Jesus

should be viewed from this standpoint, and should be accepted or rejected on the grounds of their inherent

reasonableness.” Doubt is the means by which unsanctified reason always works. Self is its mainspring,

and self its goal; self its element, and the worship of self its result. But “0 thou of little faith, wherefore

didst thou doubt?” Matt. 14: 31. “Neither be ye of doubtful min (Luke 12: 29); for “whatsoever is not of

faith is sin” (Rom. 14: 23), and “without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Hebrews 11:6), while on the

other hand, “all things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark 9:23). The wisdom of the higher critic is

dangerous; for “the world through its wisdom knew not God.” I Corinthians 1:21, A. R. V. All these

theological exalters of reason should obey the urgent words of Paul counseling them about “casting down

reasonings, . and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5, A.

R. V., margin. In face of these scriptures, the fact that “the art of doubting” is actually– taught as the most

essential qualification for learning religion in a divinity school, is a most appalling condition of affairs, and

is significant of the trend and effect of all the teaching of the new theology. Its foundation is doubt, and its

object is to promulgate doubt. Doubt is its essence, infidelity its sphere, and atheism its result. The

destructive critic has the advantage over the constructive scholar. can without risk scholar. The critic,

having no house of his own, can without risk, set fire to his neighbor’s. And of course the burning of a

house attracts more attention than the building of one. The Samsons of higher criticism may endeavour to

push out the pillar of God’s truth, but they are immovable, God’s Jachin and Boaz, “He shall establish,” “In

it is strength.”

5 - CREMATING THE OLD TESTAMENT

THE teaching of doubt as an aid to belief has resulted in numerous such statements as the following:

“Exquisitely beautiful often are those Hebrew representations of the universe, full of richest poetry of

nature; but honest exegesis can find there no faintest gleam of the light of science.” W. N. Rice, professor

of geology in Wesleyan University, “Christian Faith in an Age of Science,” page 6. “The descriptions of

The Bible In The Critic’s Den

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the exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the desert, and the conquest and partition of Canaan, . . . to put it

in a word, are utterly unhistorical.”-Kuenen, “Hexateuch,” page 42. (Italics his.) “The mighty patriarchs of

the early days were not men of flesh and blood at all; they are reduced by criticism to personification of

virtues, or to tribes, or at best to tribal heroes.”-Dr. McFadyen, “Old Testament Criticism,” page 9. The

Rev. Dr. C. A. Briggs, one of the leading higher critics of the world, is pleased with this result. “It is safe to

say that the Bible has become a new book to the modern scholar, as the result of all these historical studies

and the researches of historical criticism. The material has been in large part sifted and scientifically

arranged.”-”Study of Holy Scripture,” page 508. But unfortunately for the “scientific” advocates, their

theories have resulted not only in no agreement, but in endless confusion. This is evident from the lack of

harmony among themselves, which even a casual reading of their works makes irritatingly apparent. For

instance, there is a difference of a thousand years in the dating of the Decalogue by men equally scientific.

The same psalms are placed nine hundred years apart by men of equal critical acumen. There is a

divergence of eleven hundred years as to the date of Job among critics of the first rank. This is the same as

if one were unable to determine whether Columbus lived in the time of Constantine or was a contemporary

of Queen Isabella. Such are some of the results of the boasted “scientific arrangement.” But while there is

disagreement concerning the dates of the composition and the methods of production, Dr. Briggs voices the

almost unanimous sentiment of higher critics when he says that “in all matters which core within the sphere

of human observation, and which constitute the framework of divine instruction, errors may be found.” It is

the veriest commonplace of the new theology to deny utterly all historical truth to the Genesis account of

creation, Eden, the fall, the Deluge, and the Tower of Babel, which are called variously, according to the

taste or training of the critic, myth, lie, forgery, legend, or poetry - but fact never. (”Study of Holy

Scripture,” page 634.) Cain and Abel, along with Noah and Joseph, are relegated to the limbo of oblivion.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Lot and his wife, likewise even Saul, David, and Solomon, are regarded as but

myths. The vast body of laws found in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, including the accounts of the

tabernacle, constitutes what the critics call the Priestly Code, designated by P. But the elaborate

descriptions of the tabernacle and its contents, the disposition of the wilderness camp, choice of the

Levites, the origin of the Passover, etc., are all a “product of the imagination.” It is claimed that when Ezra,

in 444 B. c., as related in Nehemiah 8, read laws to the people, this was their first appearance. Says

Kuenen: “They were not laws which had been long in existence, and which were now proclaimed afresh

and accepted by the people, after having been forgotten for a while. The priestly ordinances were made

known and imposed upon the Jewish nation now for the first time.” On this theory, a greater set of falsifiers

never lived than the promulgators of this code; for there never was a tithe system for support of priests and

Levites, nor sin offerings, nor trespass offerings, nor day of atonement, nor tabernacle, nor feasts, nor any

of the other numerous things mentioned! And the manufacturers of this code knew it, for they were

themselves its inventors! The giving of the law at Sinai was only the private concoction of some inventive

priest in Babylon ten centuries after it was supposed to have been given! How do they prove all this? the

reader asks. They not only do not prove it, but they do not even attempt to do so; they boldly avow that

they “infer” it. Says Wellhausen on this point: “As we are accustomed to infer the date of the composition

of Deuteronomy from its publication and introduction by Josiah, so we must infer the date of the

composition of the Priestly Code from its publication and introduction by Ezra and Nehemiah.”-”History of

Israel,” page 408. In fact, the whole history of higher criticism is little more than the account of

“inferences” which, in the effort to sustain their theories, they “must” make. In 444 B. C., for the first time,

the people hear of a day of atonement and the solemn and elaborate ritual of observance! Yet the thought